Archive for the 'Sailing' Category

Apr 26 2005

Racing on Thursday?

Published by under Sailing

Thursday nights are now being taken over by Club Racing at the Guernsey Yacht Club and this year I’m determind to learn more about the weather and the tides. I’ve found that so often when we go out racing nobody on the boat has any clear direction on tactics concerning the general conditions so I’m taking upon myself to learn as much as possible about local racing conditions.

I’ve already noticed (from last Thursdays race) that its no good following the Admiralty Charts tidal diamond for the Russel when racing. The racing marks in the Russel are all on the edges where the tide does wierd things. On Thursday I predicted that the tide wouldn’t start turning until about 9:30pm, however when we got to Anfre, inshore on the west side of the Russel, the tide had already turned south and within 15 minutes was running quite strongly.

If I had the time and the resources I would like to be able to put out data loggers to measure the tidal flow around each of the racing marks. Unfortunately, although I have worked out how to build the data logger I don’t have the resources to make and deploy them. So I’ll just have to try to record my observations during races.

Thursday night, however, looks like its going to be a bit windy. For once both Metcheck.com and the BBC Weather agree on that so there may not be a race on Thursday, or if there is its going to be a wet one.

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Apr 25 2005

Half Arsed at the Boathouse

Published by under Sailing

Seeing as how Shane and Leigh have posted about this topic I thought I’d better add my 5 cents worth, as it seems that neither of them has explained exactly what happened.

The morning started with the cancellation of the sailing race that was due to be held. Everyone else started the day preparing for the race but I got there a little late. It was (almost)unanimously decided that we would go to the Guernsey Yacht Club for a coffee followed by breakfast at the Boathouse braserie.

The order was quite simple three Full English breakfasts, one without egg, and two beans on toast. The drinks order was four orange juices, two earl grey teas and one black coffee. When I ordered my Full English I tried asking for it without the egg but was initial virtually told to shut up as she’d finished taking my order.

The drinks arrived first, all apart from milk for the tea and an orange juice. It took three requests before we finally received the orange juice and the milk and it wasn’t like they were terribly busy at the time, I think there may have been two waitresses and a manager serving three tables.

When the breakfasts finally arrived we had two beans on toast (as requested) and three Full English… all with eggs. I tried pointing out to the waitress that I had request no egg with my Full English, at this point she seemed very confused and grabbed the other waitress who also couldn’t quite grasp the fact that I had request to not have a egg with my breakfast and had to call over the manager. He started going off on one about how not having an egg wouldn’t reduce the price of the breakfast. Do I look like I’m broke? Is it so inconveicable that I didn’t want the egg because I really don’t like egg?

Apart from the setting that must be one of the worst sunday morning fry-ups I’ve had in a long time. For the quality of the food and the service the Boathouse was hugely over priced. I fully agree with Shane and Leigh decision to never voluntarily go there again. We have got a list of other posssible places to go, including the Half Moon, Friar Tucks and the White Rock.

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Apr 19 2005

Winter Sailing

Published by under Sailing

I have recently been asked by people when I’ll be starting sailing again this year, to which I generally reply: “Start sailing? I’ve been sailing thoughout the winter!”. This generally get a shocked response along the lines of: “Are you insane?!?!”.

I guess the answer to that you probably be a resounding YES but there is another answer which goes something like this:

Winter sailing is quite easy:

  1. You get dressed up nice and warm
  2. Put more clothes one
  3. Put on thick all-season sailing water-proofs
  4. Have a nice hot cup of coffee
  5. Head out for the sail, all the time thinking “This will be over soon, this will be over soon, this will…..”
  6. When you get back to shore have a nice hot cup of coffee
  7. Go home and get back into bed!

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Feb 28 2005

Sailing Marks Catalogued

Published by under Sailing

My friends, and fellow sailors, Shane and Dave went out on Saturday (I believe) to record the marks that are used by the Guernsey Yacht Club for club racing courses. The aim was to record the GPS locations of the various marks and to photograph the marks as a visual aid when trying to spot them during races.

Shane has also put together a website which ties together a map of Guernsey and photos based on the GPS information.

Continue Reading »

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Oct 07 2004

Global Challenge 2004/5

Published by under Sailing

The Global Challenge round the world sailing race is under way. One of the yachts “Spirit of Sark” is being sponsored by the Isle of Sark (one of the islands that makes up the Bailiwick of Guernsey).

You can follow the progress of the yachts on the Challenge website. They have also got satelite imaging so users can see the (almost) current locations of the yachts.

They have also provided an RSS Feed so you can keep up-to-date with all the latest goings on, as they are reported by the yachts, through your favourite RSS reader.

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Aug 20 2004

Sailing Victory

Published by under Sailing

The yacht Mystere was out on the water again last night with the usual crew (plus Brooky).

And what a race it was! Following a good first leg we rounded the mark (almost leaving the rigging attached to the mark!), hoisted the spinaker and really started fly. About half-way down the second leg we had to do a spinaker gyb and, as per usual, we managed to fluff it up. Dave couldn’t get the pole back on the mast track and we got the spinaker wrapped around the forestay.

Dispite the spinaker antics and once or twice almost lying the boat flat we managed to finish second on the water (in a race of two boats!) but managed to klinch victory on handicap.

As a result, Mystere is now in first place, three points clear, on the Summer Series of races with one race to go.

Can this young crew win the series? Only time will tell!

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