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.
Beating again
St Kilda is a very forbidding place. Now apparently uninhabited, apart from some military personnel doing God knows what.
Our rumb-line course from St Kilda to Sula Sgier, a small and impossibly remote island, 45 miles NW of Cape Wrath, is 044 and, to our enormous frustration, we can only make about 055 .. At this rate we're going to beat all the way round. Our spinnaker has only seen about 6 hours use, at most in 8 days sailing so far. Not a good investment.
I remember a friend telling me that he once beat all the way round this same course. Oh sh*t!
We' seem to have failed in our attempt to fix the leak in the starboard water tank and are now on rations however the Barra water tastes so disgustingly chemically, that we prefer the bottled water for tea anyway. We're also watching the diesel situation carefully as, what with the fridge and the autopilot, we're running the generator 4 hours a day.
Caught 5 Mackerel yesterday afternoon and had them filleted and fried in brown bread and butter sandwiches. Absolutely delicious. Took long watches last night, so we both got a 5 hour stretch in the sack. Cold enough for gloves and my, cover the ears and neck hat. Thanks Sarah.
