Kipper Sailing
| Vessel Name: | Kipper of London |
18 November 2010
White Boats
Sailing schools are commercial enterprises and margins are extremely tight, so they typically buy training boats that provide sufficient accommodation for the maximum of 5 students and one instructor at the lowest possible price. These are usually European (as opposed to British) built and on large production [...]
18 November 2010
Jet Skis
I positively hate jet skis, the people who use them and everything to do with them. As far as I'm concerned they're ridden by men with small willies and without the balls to ride a motorbike. And I mean MEN. When did you ever hear of a woman stupid enough to buy a jet ski? Am I being unfair. No. Do I have an issue with other powered recreational vessels (motor-yachts, ribs, ski boats)? No. The problem with jet-skis is that the idiots who ride them will ride round and round and round what, should have been, a quiet anchorage. This is akin to somebody riding a noisy motorbike round and round a park where everybody else is trying to enjoy a quiet, whatever you do in a park (I wouldn't know). If I could legally buy a bazooka, I'd buy one and blast all the jet skiers to kingdom come.
18 November 2010
Big Boats , Small Boats
Once upon a time, maybe 25+ years ago, a typical first boat was a Mirror Dinghy, then a Wayfarer, then a small Westerly, then a Contessa 32, then a 40 footer. All this over a lifetime of sailing. Experience was gained slowly. Nowadays too many people go out and buy (yes you've guessed it) a shiny new [...]
18 July 2010 | Lymington
Back to Work
Back to the day (and sometimes night) job after the (excitement) of the 2-handed RB&I race. And guess what? I'm enjoying myself more working than I was, supposedly, taking some R&R. It's one Hell of a lot more varied and stimulating.
06 July 2010 | On our way bsck to Lymington
Final thoughts on the race
Now it's all over, I've had time to reflect on the experience and to report on what worked and what didn't.
Have we upset the Wing Gods
No such luck for us. Over the last 15 hours the wind has slowly backed NW and the 70 mile leg from The Fastnet, round The Bull and up to Dingle is a dead beat. The best VMG we can make is 3.5 to 4.0 kts, so what might have taken us around 12 hours, will now take more like 20 and we're falling behind schedule. Presently we're heading out into The Atlantic on starboard tack making a COG of around 270 with a SOG of 6.3kts. We know that the wind will back more at some stage and there seems to be more wind away from the coast, so this seems our best option. We plan to tack in about another 3hrs. The wind is F6 and we're sailing with 2 reefs in the main, staysail and partly furled yankee. The waves are quite big but gentle on us compared to a typical Channel chop. Kipper is in her element and we're enjoying ourselves and managing plenty of sleep.
