All around Catch Up

Well it has been a while since I last posted and I should be posting more regularly. However, this has been a rather busy year as I got married and missed the B14 World Championships to go on Honeymoon in Mauritius instead. To make up for missing the Worlds however, I had some Kite Surfing lessons whilst on Honeymoon and have since bought all the gear so I will certainly start writing some posts about that.

Since my last post I have taken part in the B14 Inlands in Datchet. These were a semi success but the result was a little too ‘standard’ for my liking. We had some good upwind and downwind legs but sadly our starts left a lot to be desired.

Club Sailing at Hythe

Well a few more weeks have passed since my last post. I have had 3 outings in various boats since then.

I sailed with Andrew Thompson for the first time in 6 years on a Thursday (21st April) evening race. We used to sail a B14 and a Laser 3000 together and were almost unbeatable in the 3000. This time we sailed mine and Charlotte’s Tasar, it was just about breezy enough to sit on the side and hike and we completed the 3 laps of the triangle-sausage course with no real problems with the exception of breaking the kicker, but it needed replacing anyway. We finished third on the water and third on handicap after the two contenders sailed by Tom Coley and Adrian Smith. I believe we were only 13 seconds behind Tom!

Icicle Series

A long overdue catchup…

Well over the winter I have been sailing this year. I took part in most of the Icicle Series at Bough Beech Sailing Club.

I took part in each of the morning races but due to the weather and other factors I was unable to take part in the afternoons.

For this I sailed the Laser, this is a boat that I acquired last May in a swap for the RS800 that I owned. The sail was in particularly poor condition and I did struggle to attain any reasonable results with it in the lighter conditions. As a result of this I placed an order for a new Maldon Sailboats replica sail of the latest design. This was going to take a few weeks to arrive. When the sail did finally arrive I was able to take it out for the last weekends sailing and it made a marked improvement. I was able to point as high as the other boats and had much better boat speed than before. This meant that instead of struggling to keep up with the other boats I was at the front of the pack and finished first Laser in that race.

Overall the Icicle series lived up to its name, it was cold and 1 week we even had snow. My results may not have been that good but it was an enjoyable series of races.

 

I bought a Laser…

Well, on the last bank holdiay weekend an opportunity arose that saw me purchase a very old and sorry looking yellow laser. It cost a grand total of £45 for the hull and £55 for a mast, boom, rudder and plastic trolley.

The gunwhales had blown and the bow was damaged. I have spent the last few weeks repairing these areas and I now wish that I had taken some photos of this. This boat isnt going to be pretty or a light boat (its 35 years old so it will never be) but it will be sailable and will do for a boat for Charlotte to learn to sail singlehanded in.