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.
Toys out of the pram
The leg down to the point was really slow, tacking against a weak tide, the 11 miles took us nearly 5 hours. We couldn't help remembering that, when we'd sailed in the other way, on Tuesday evening we'd passed faster boats on their way out, broad reaching under the spinnakers at 8-10kts.
We tried cutting the corner, close under the towering cliffs, topped by a powerful lighthouse, which was almost totally obscured by thick, low cloud. But, as we closed the shore, the wind dropped right off and we got stuck in a nasty chop, killing all our boat-speed and, at one stage, we got stuck in irons. The only option was to tack offshore, seeking more wind and calmer water. Fortunately the tide was with us, if it had been against us, we'd have been stuck there for ages. It was slow progress but we were eventually able to set course for our waypoint just west of St Kilda, 70 miles away.
Although the wind was well aft, it was only 6kts and the sea still very choppy, so we delayed hoisting the spinnaker, fearing a wrap, and finally hoisted it at around 0330 but it wouldn't settle down and we had a frustrating hour or so before the chop eased and the wind increased slightly. At one stage we were making nearly 6kts but the wind then dropped to around 10kts and our speed dropped to around 5kts.
Then it all went to sh*t. It was 0745 and I'd had my head down for about and hour when John woke me to say that we had to get the kite down. To my consternation when I came on deck we were heading NE! In fact, in order to get the ***** down we normally sail dead downwind and, at one stage we were heading East. Anybody watching the tracker must have really wondered if we'd been at the wine. The wind had veered 135 degrees NE. We got the kite down and tacked. St Kilda is now 32 miles directly upwind. The wind is 4kts and we're making 1.4kts. The worst bit, the wind is forecast to go NE later. If that happens it'll be a 300 mile dead beat from St Kilda to Muckle Flugga at the Northern tip of The Shetlands. It's not just toys that are going to be thrown out of the pram.
