N3441 Pepsi

[National 12 Webmaster]

The life of N3441 Pepsi.  Design: Feeling Foolish, designed by: Bim Daser in 1995
Previous boat names: Matilda, Tabitha.

[alanhillman]

3441 was purchased on 13/2/16 and is currently ongoing a refurbishment and painting programme after which she will be known as "Pepsi" She will live in the South and may venture further afield once the new owners are more competent.

[ifoxwell]

As of December 2017, Hannah and I have taken over Pepsi, 3441 and we thought we would update the database with her history... or as much as we can find out. If any of you can add something to this story then please let us know.

Back in the 1995 Bim Daser came up with Feeling Foolish... the original Feeling Foolish N12 and it didn't take the fleet long to recognise just how good the design was and so other sailors  wanted one for themselves. With this in mind, as I understand it, two moulds were taken from Bims original hull. One went to Winder boats and became the P&B Foolish, the second I believe was owned by Derek Davies and various builders have since used this to build boats from.

So in 1999 Ian Gore was looking for a new boat and as he wanted to transfer the rig and fittings from an existing boat the P&B route wasn't really an option, although when they heard what he was doing I'm told they did offer to build him a hull only, but he had by now had decided to get Nigel Waller to build him one.  Derek agreed to hire them the mould, which they had to collect on a boat trailer from Exmouth and take to Nigel who was based at Royal Harwich. I'm told this was a somewhat fraught journey! (perhaps someone could fill us in here on what actually happened!!)

The result was Tabitha / Matilda / Pepsi... she is an all carbon feeling foolish that was built by Nigel Waller in the April of 1999. We have previously owned Email, 3443 a Final Chapter built by Nigel Waller so we know how good his boats are, and I'm told that Nigel was fanatical about keeping the boats he built as light and stiff as possible. That is certainly born out by what we can see in Pepsi as she still has around 15kg of correctors built into her and is rock solid.

The boat was originally fitted with a gybing board which in the end was converted to a normal board as Ian  was never sure it how well it worked. It was also originally built without a thwart, which meant it looked fantastic and was great in a breeze, but was tricky to crew in light weather. Ian and Alex campaigned the boat properly until around 2005/6 after which family life and big boat cruising got in the way.

Ian tells me that It took a little while to get up to speed, but in the end was pretty quick and he had some good results. These were his words not mine, a flick through the 12 handbook notes the following results and although it never won the big race I think it can be said to have been quite a bit better than just 'pretty quick'
Burton Cup
2000 6th
2002 3rd
2003 3rd
2004 4th
2005 2nd
2006 2nd
Missed 2007/8
2009 6th

Silver National
2002 6th
2003 3rd
2005 4th
2006 3rd
2009 9th
2010 9th
2011 10th (first 2nd generation boat)

Gill / Gull Series
2003 2nd
2004 2nd
2005 2nd

Inlands
2000 3rd
2002 2nd
2008 2nd

Norfolk Week, several wins over the years
Thames area series 1st in 2000
Midland area 1st in 2004

In 2011 he started experimenting with a T foil using the Dare Barry adjustment system, where the whole rudder and stock rotates on the pintle, so this required little adjustment to the boat but by around 2011/2 he decided that if you cant beat them, join them, and moved over to a Dead Cat Bounce and sold Tabitha to Neal (sorry Neal I don't have your last name?)

Neal bought her as he was planning on moving up from the Admirals Cup class (he also has Indecision, a Design 8 and intended to fully restore her with the addition of a T foil.  A house move stalled things after she was completely stripped down and when 3501 (Tom Stewart's blue Foolish) came up for sale (which Keri Harris had just repainted and added a foil to) he decided that was the quicker and easier route to take so bought her.  He then had both Foolish's plus 3271 for a year or so before selling Tabitha on to Alan Hillman in Feb 2016.

Now I have meet Alan, he's a great bloke who loves his sailing but doesn't do things by halves. So having bought Tabitha he completed the job started by Neal and didn't hold back. The hull was professionally restored and painted in two pack paint, which was also in her new colour scheme, Red White and Blue to go with her new name, Pepsi. Chosen by his daughter who was also to be Alans crew. Fitted out with all Harken gear and basically bought back to 'as new' condition.

Alan and his daughter sail at Spinnaker sailing club and as great as Pepsi turned out to be she didn't really work for the sailing they were doing, so they moved on to another class which brings us up to date.

Hannah and I have bought Pepsi to sail when we can, for fun. Family life and a big boat take up a lot of our time but we are hoping to do some of the opens this year as well as some of the bigger local dinghy races. We sail on the river Medway in Kent and I doubt we will be adding to Tabitha / Pepsi's long list of achievements but you never know J

We will be sharing some of our adventures on our YouTube channel so for those that are interested you can find out how we get on here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HFKwP_loEA&list=PLsrC0qy2tqsNHMv3YeITmIPaD_0PJxa-m

[Chris bows]

Just bought Pepsi/ Tabatha - teach grandson to sail -  be sailed at Leigh and Lowton; still in very good nick maybe needing new rags at some point.