More sailing stuff

Lostboy · 04 August 2006, 11:20

As there appear to be a few fellow rag hangers on here I'd thought I'd post a picture of my usual steed. The rib is predominantly used as the commuting boat to get to go racing in this! The boats website is www.flairIV.com and the big bloke at the mast is me.

Credit to Daniel Forster of Rolex for the photograph.

Tasarsailor · 04 August 2006, 15:38

Good to see some ragbagger coverage. I will be plastic bagging (new mylar sails) in the Columbia River Gorge this weekend on my Tasar.

The primary reason I own a RIB over anything else is because of my sailing.

dctucker · 04 August 2006, 17:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tasarsailor

The primary reason I own a RIB over anything else is because of my sailing.

Me too. Bought the rib to use as a coach & safety boat for my wifes Paralympic sailing campaign. Unfortunately, the 26 year old outboard is fubared right now.

Working on BRP to donate a nice shiney new E-TEC 90 to the cause... wish me luck!

It seems sailors who also also own powerboats are far more likely to choose a rib vs. the general boating population. Must be because we are smarter!

Or we just want to be able to bash up against our sailboats without worrying about damage.

codprawn · 04 August 2006, 17:56

I LOVE sailing boats - well some of them anyway. Classic looking old style or blue water cruisers - you can keep your plastic German or French mass produced crap. Only reason I didn't buy a sailing boat is time - or lack of it. If I had a blue water cruiser I would probably leave harbour and never come back - the temptation would be too great!!!

Brambles · 04 August 2006, 20:07

I think that sailing boats make great subject matter for photographs. Here's one I took on Tuesday during Cowes week. Now I'm no expert, but I think this skipper had a bit of a problem

Cheers

Ian

loose canon · 05 August 2006, 13:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by codprawn

I LOVE sailing boats - well some of them anyway. Classic looking old style or blue water cruisers - you can keep your plastic German or French mass produced crap. Only reason I didn't buy a sailing boat is time - or lack of it. If I had a blue water cruiser I would probably leave harbour and never come back - the temptation would be too great!!!

we can only hope

codprawn · 05 August 2006, 15:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by loose canon

we can only hope

Your style seems somewhat familiar.....

dctucker · 05 August 2006, 16:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brambles

I think that sailing boats make great subject matter for photographs. Here's one I took on Tuesday during Cowes week. Now I'm no expert, but I think this skipper had a bit of a problem

Yes. Clearly, too much backstay and cunningham, leading to massive overbend wrinkles in the mainsail. Oh, and the colorful sail is supposed to be out front of the boat.

I MUST sail at Cowes Week one of these years. It sounds like altogether too much chaos and fun!

Limey Linda · 05 August 2006, 17:20

Agree , far too much mast bend. However, if that photo was taken just as he was about to haul in the chute that it's position is OK. yes you should treat yourself to at least one Cowes week. It is more fun than you can possibly imagine. Regards, T.

Lostboy · 07 August 2006, 08:55

I suspect he's got a long way to point down before he can sheet that in! Most X99s are set up with a LOT of mast rake that can still then be increased with backstay. This poor lads just recovering from broach, hence why he's pointing upwind with a kite!

We just came second in class at Cowes Week despite the fact that we charter it and therefore get a change of crew every day. 5 of the regulars sail with 6 guests and we have to hope for sailors or else that we are going to teach them well. The wind suited us (most days over 20knots) but unfortunately it better suited the larger displacement Swan 46 that beat us!

Cowes Week is still good but is now positioned as a "London by the Sea" social circuit event like Ascot.

"
Me too. Bought the rib to use as a coach & safety boat for my wifes Paralympic sailing campaign. Unfortunately, the 26 year old outboard is fubared right now. Working on BRP to donate a nice shiney new E-TEC 90 to the cause... wish me luck!" - Which class is your wife sailing in? The 2.4m? The guy who owns Flair IV has three daughters, all of whom sail, but one is spending a lot of time on the telly and in the sailing media recently as she sails with two time gold medalist Shirley Robertson and is on her Beijing Yingling campaign. I wish you luck with your fundraising as we know how difficult it is!!!

dctucker · 07 August 2006, 15:45

Boat in the photo is clearly going sideways... my reply was more than a bit tongue in cheek!

Trying to go upwind with the kite is usually a bad idea

I've sailed a 2.4mR in the Miami OCR and another regatta over a year ago. Great little boat, loads of fun to sail. I had an absolute blast in both events, while getting totally schooled by the top disabled sailors in the class. Great, tight, tactical racing. I'd love to get a fleet started in Marblehead where I live.

My wife is sailing the new 2 person boat, the SKUD-18. Very different sort of boat than the 2.4mR or the Sonar she campaigned for Athens. We've had the boat since 31 May, and just completed the first regatta (ever, anywhere, we believe) at the Sailing World/Land's End NOOD at Marblehead Race Week. Her team was squeezed out of first in the last race, by 1 point. Would have won on a tiebreaker.

3rd place boat was only 2 points behind her. Another good, close regatta. We're just beginning to sort out the issues with the boat, both from build quality perspective and performance perspective. Still on the very steep part of the learning curve with the boat. It is an absolute blast downwind in a breeze with the kite! I sailed it in Newport in 20-25 knots, planing downwind easily at 12-15 knots I'd guess. Great fun! I gather the RYA just received their SKUDS 2-3 weeks ago. We're off to the US Disabled Sailing Team qualifier in the SKUD next week.

Fundraising IS difficult. And an enormous pain in the ass! Most US sailors are a bit jealous of the RYA's Lottery funding. Our Olympic sailors are barely funded at all, and Paralympic sailors are basically unfunded. US Sailing is working hard at changing that, but it takes time... So for now, it's all up to us. We just received a lot of media attention as a result to the NOOD regatta. We're working on leveraging that into some donations now.

Sailing with Shirley Robertson in the Yngling is certainly the big time. Our coach is Betsy Allison, one of Shirley's competitors in Athens, and no slouch of a sailor herself. I spend a lot of time with Betsy and I figure I pick up 70%-80% of what she sees of my wife's team's problems and mistakes. The difference is, I'm only looking at one boat, while Betsy's looking at 6 to 30 boats!

Lostboy · 07 August 2006, 16:22

The Skud - different to the 2.4m, you're not kidding!! It's a great looking boat. I know the first three are assembled and the stability tests have been passed over here but I have yet to see one in anger. It will certainly be an interesting boat.

Lottery funding has been superb in the development of our sailing talent but a lot of the success is also down to the RYA getting in money from Volvo, Volkswagen, Skandia and a few other big names by promoting the lifestyle type thing. What is also good is that this has filtered down (thru' the excellent Volvo Club scheme) to some of the junior classes. Team GBR has an excellent future looking at some of the talent coming through at the moment.

We were chatting with Paul Cayard at the Portsmouth stopover of the VOR and he was bemoaning the funding situation in the states and basically saying that if you were campaigning then you were either rich or a professional with one of the big Americas Cup syndicates or have the love of someone like Phillipe Kahn, in which case you'd be gifted the resources of his Pegasus sailing empire!

Very best of luck to you, do you have a campaign website that I can keep an eye on?

dctucker · 07 August 2006, 19:33

US Sailing seems to be trying to take a few pages from the RYA/Team GBR playbook now. They're aggressively fundraising to create an endowment for Olympic sailing. It's a big improvement over the past, but still a long way to go. GBR has a lot more going on in the development side of the equation too. That's on the radar for the US, but far from being funded. Sailors with Paralympic aspirations are going to be on their own for at least this quadrennium, and maybe the next. GBR is the powerhouse currently.

Cayard's comments, pretty true! He falls into the rare, self-funded rich guy category. There are still plenty of dedicated amateurs, living hand to mouth, trying to live the dream, self-funding and scraping by on $25, $50 & $100 donations. That's pretty much where we are... US Sailing allocates the resources they do have, to the few teams that place on the podium in international Grade 1 events, in classes where they believe we have a possibility to medal.

Team website is www.teameagle.org

Limey Linda · 07 August 2006, 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by codprawn

Your style seems somewhat familiar.....

And leaves a lot to be desired

Lostboy · 08 August 2006, 09:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by dctucker

US Sailing seems to be trying to take a few pages from the RYA/Team GBR playbook now. They're aggressively fundraising to create an endowment for Olympic sailing. It's a big improvement over the past, but still a long way to go. GBR has a lot more going on in the development side of the equation too. That's on the radar for the US, but far from being funded. Sailors with Paralympic aspirations are going to be on their own for at least this quadrennium, and maybe the next. GBR is the powerhouse currently.

Cayard's comments, pretty true! He falls into the rare, self-funded rich guy category. There are still plenty of dedicated amateurs, living hand to mouth, trying to live the dream, self-funding and scraping by on $25, $50 & $100 donations. That's pretty much where we are... US Sailing allocates the resources they do have, to the few teams that place on the podium in international Grade 1 events, in classes where they believe we have a possibility to medal.

Team website is www.teameagle.org

Nice one, I'll keep an eye on that. (Just been on it and see you are assisted by Gul, so are we!!! Great kit and a good company to be supported by.

www.FlairIV.com is the website for the yacht campaign

www.shirleyrobertson.com is where you can see how Lucy is getting on with their Yngling campaign.

Tasarsailor · 09 August 2006, 17:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by dctucker

Me too. Bought the rib to use as a coach & safety boat for my wifes Paralympic sailing campaign. Unfortunately, the 26 year old outboard is fubared right now.

Working on BRP to donate a nice shiney new E-TEC 90 to the cause... wish me luck!

It seems sailors who also also own powerboats are far more likely to choose a rib vs. the general boating population. Must be because we are smarter!

Or we just want to be able to bash up against our sailboats without worrying about damage.

We had the same outboard issue a few years back and repowered with yammy 115 4stroke. Now we are having a smaller fuel tank built. soooo nice not eating 2stoke smoke. Plus now that our are petrol prices are climbing (still cheap compared to the rest of world) the fuel economy has made it a lot easier.

Phill27 · 09 August 2006, 18:53

Heres a few of the reason why i bought my rib!!!

dctucker · 09 August 2006, 21:49

Phill,

18 foot skiffs are about the coolest/craziest, most bad-ass boats ever. I love how the prod is nearly as long as the hull.

I've got a Ronstan video of 18's doing all sorts of crazy stuff, full of spectacular wipe-outs. Maybe I'll watch that tonight before I go off to a leadmine regatta this weekend... (Sonar North
American Championship).

I'm not sure I'd have the guts to sail an 18 in any sort of breeze, but I'd sure like to try one sometime! Probably ought to try a tame trap boat first, like a 49er or 5-o-5

I have one sailing mate who keeps threatening to take me sailing in his 5-o. One of these days I'll hold him to it!

Great shots.

Jimbo · 09 August 2006, 22:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by dctucker

Phill,

18 foot skiffs are about the coolest/craziest, most bad-ass boats ever. I love how the prod is nearly as long as the hull.

I've got a Ronstan video of 18's doing all sorts of crazy stuff, full of spectacular wipe-outs. Maybe I'll watch that tonight before I go off to a leadmine regatta this weekend...

Is that the one from australia - aussie skiffs I think it's called? At the beginning an impressive wipe out in front of a ferry as I recall?

Phill27 · 09 August 2006, 23:13

Yep prob the one where they wipe out and the ferry runs over its rig, check out www.f1sail.com the videos on there....

Yep awesome boat and get to see the world sailing these things, however a change of underwear is advised!!!

The guys who done the rescue cover at the nssa chapionships were a tad lucky we were planning to do the allcomers race in the skiff but was waylaid with a hot sunny beach in cuba with a bit of hobie sailing!!