Well, I have to say that sailing days are getting fewer and further between, primarily because stronger winds and lower temperature make me hesitate to take my kids onboard. Also, the water level having dropped by 50' over the summer, the Queen Mother Reservoir looks rather like a pond these days...
If a nice sunny day comes about I may still be tempted.
Just to make matters worse the Datchet Water Sailing Club has just announced that all sailing activities are suspended until the water level goes back up :-( It's now so low that they can't launch their safety boats!
We hope to carry on this winter but our shiny new Stratos has returned to laser this week. When we were de-rigging at the nationals a couple of weeks back Paul James noticed that we had a small amount of water in between the innner and outer hull mouldings. I have to hand it to him he immediately said he wanted it back for pressure testing so as to identify the source of the problem. Being used to a 40 year old wooden boat with bouyancy bags I hadn't really thought about it as a problem. Apparently they are expected to be watertight and remain so for a considerable period assuming no damage is done to them.I was most relieved therefore, that Paul was on hand to spot the problem and support us so quickly. So on Thursday a very polite and helpful David turned up in the Laser van to collect the hull and take it back to Long Buckby for the remedial work. I'm going to spend sunday single handing in our old laser and trying to coach my son in his new topper and we hope to start some serious practice in the Stratos later in the month. Happy sailing everyone!
Winter sailing
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Posted - 08 Nov 2003 : 00:32:25
