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.
F6 for now
Actually, if this blog gets posted anytime in the near future it'll be a miracle. For the last 24hrs I've been unable to connect to the station in Belgium. Maybe I've exceeded my 90 mins per week quota but I've not had any warning. It could also be a quirk of radio propagation with my signal skipping over Belgium now we're nearer. Yesterday I used stations in The Red Sea and Nova Scotia but it's really slow and takes a ton of power. There's also only a very narrow window.
This wind will drop over the next 24hrs. It might veer SW or W because there's a low coming in over the north but, looking at the latest surface pressure charts, I suspect that we'll be too far south and, according to the latest inshore forecast, we're due another spell of light and variable winds from noon Sunday onwards. ETA Lowestoft still Tuesday but it's a guess.
Earlier we were called up on the VHF by one of my sailing school customers. He'd heard me asking Humber Coastguard for wind strength and direction at their HQ. Good to hear from you Graham and I wish you the best for next week.
