A personal note about the need for spring!

[Jeremy C]

Poking one foot out of the bed this morning and testing the air temperature should have given me a good enough reason to stay in bed... but no, its Sunday and sailing is what we do on Sundays!

Off to the club then, temperature gauge never deigned to lift itself above the 0 mark on the drive and the bitter  Northerly wind was already set fair as we arrived.

Bacon sarnie it was then, as we discussed the merits of the warmth of the clubhouse. Other craft on the beach were thin and far between whilst TC remained resolutely wrapped up in the relative warmth of her cover, the gentle smattering of snow looking decidedly comfortable on top. Bacon dispatched decisions had to be made, and perhaps I should have followed 'she who knows best' who confirmed that the chance of leaving the warmth of the club room was so far to being close to minimal that I really shouldn't ask!

But inexplicably I just had this urge to sail... can't think why, must be something to do with owning a 12 I suppose. So single handed it was to be then.

Boat rigged in record time, changed and then thought, hey this isn't so bad as I stood on the foreshore waiting for the committee boat to set station and still being able to feel my hands. Off I went, I even manged to keep the main sheet dry on launching (a big plus in my books for the little pinkies happiness).  Wind, just on the limit of single handing upwind, but great for the offwind legs as planing came early.

First beat went well, ahead of a couple of blazes and other fast fleet boats and only blaze and the Icon in front. Single handed PY 1033 so had to work hard. Kept hanging on for a couple of laps, making little headway either forward or backwards against the competition, things going well! Third beat, went the wrong way and lost a good 50m on the Blaze who had been just in front, increasing wind was starting to play against me. Still a lot of offwind on the course so I went all out to really crank her up on the reaches. Shrouds, outhaul, board, all eased and off I flew.

Another gust, went for a bit of kinetics to flatten the boat and .... Bang.... over the side, headfirst into the coldly welcoming lake (I swear it had a grin on its face as it ate me up!)

 

Result very cold.... NO I mean VERY cold.... firs thought-'really should invest in a dry suit', broken footstrap the culprit, oh and a broken tiller extension in the classic case of denial as one is determined not to accept the inevitable..............

 

Going to miss that tiller extension, been with us 6yrs and part of the family!

 

Conclusion,

 

Should have stayed in Bed!!!! but still

 

Jeremy

[Mike Storey]

As for me...2 days powerboat course, end of Feb....shouldn't be too bad I naively thought...WRONG!. Just getting the feeling back into my hands 5 hours after coming off the water. Amazing how cold you get just sitting in -5 wind chill. With double the kit I would normally be in if sailing I was just OK but hands and feet, where its hard to layer up - COLD, COLD COLD

Mike 

N3941

[chopper]

we arrived at club this morning my oldest Elliot was going to sail 2905 subversionbut with his friend after half hour playing with rig they decided it was too cold and they packed up again  cant say blame them lol

[Owen]

Three of us from Twickenham went down to Merstham for dinghy instructor pre-assessment yesterday. Ice in bottom of boat and sheets throughout. A kettle of warm water was used to free the control lines sufficient to hoist the main. To be honest though I wasn't too bad thanks to multiple sets of warm clothing. I think our commodore got us a cheap deal- it seems there is less demand on sailing centres' time when it is snowing. The others went on to do powerboat training today poor souls.

[icecreamman]

Oddly this all reminds me of days gone by when I was a student, drysuits had not been invented or were certainly out of the reach of pockets of poor students. We sailed on a reservoir on the top of the Pennines which in the winter months never seemed to get above freezing. One weekend we all piled into old clapped out cars that did not have any heating systems in them (that seemed to work) and drove to the club. We were met by a frozen lake, so sailing was off. Instead being hardly or more correctly stupid souls we decided that we would play Ice Hockey instead, easy we had the ice, paddles were used as hockey sticks and a small flat stone was used as a puck. Luckily nobody fell through the ice, but from memory the game lasted a mere five minutes before we retired to the warmth of the sailing club before trudging back home.