Cheap Gin, Drama & Too Many Sausages (Southport 24Hour Race)

First Enterprise Yay!

So this post is very very rushed for 2 reasons.. (1) the memories are starting to fade already and (2) this laptop gets handed back tomorrow as I change jobs… sorry but it’ll be better than nothing, I hope!

Anyway, lets wind back to the start… It was touch and go for a while as to whether I was gonna make it to Southport, no crew meant no pass out, even for the Commodore! So social media (facebook, twitter etc) were put into action to try to attract an awesome crew to sail (and drink) with me.. a few false starts, lots of interest but “cant make this weekend” responses and then, from left field, Anne Jackson (already on the team) realised that Rachel had never done Southport and wanted too… perfect!

So The Jackson’s rocked up at chez Clay Friday night a few minutes after I’d finished my home-made steak and chips…good timing.. we transferred the contents of here car into my boot and headed-off in the bloody rain towards Southport and “the party”… two and a half hours later, a coupe of wrong turns and almost constant story telling from Anne we arrived, the rain had eased so tents were “popped-up” quickly and off to the bar.

Up until that point everything was clear, but after that it was a haze of pints of Bitter, G&T, friends I hadn't seen for 12 months or more, team members and random strangers.. I love how you just pick up from where you left off, proper friends!

So at some point in the way too early in the morning kinda timeframe I stumbled with a couple of “colleagues” over to the tents and we all disappeared. Despite the rain I actually slept bloody well until 8am ish (a lie in our house!), I was disappointed to have not managed to get a “lake view” but I think it was quieter at the back and therefore it was a small price to pay! I dozed for a while longer and then after some tweets etc located the best source of sausage, baps & coffee….

So after numerous cups of tea (the coffee taste crap 1st thing, improved later) and some “breakfast” it was time to help sort the boat our and get the starting guys on the water cleanly… Johnny & Alex had a decent start, second flight and great boat speed..and then that was it.. round the marine lake the guys went and I settled in for some watching sailing, drinking tea and catching up with everyone.

Went to the Commodores Reception as always, nice glass of sparkling wine and some canapes… didnt get mullered this year, think you only make that mistake once!

The time to chillax watching the sailing… I did think that it would be very cool if the boats had GPS’s in them so you could track the paths.. be interesting to see whether the top 10 did anything dramatically different than the rest of the fleet!?

We got ourselves over the course of the first few hours up to top 10 position and 1st / 2nd Enterprise so we were on the money, the course was very much in favour of the GP14’s so that was gonna be a battle to climb any higher in the rankings.. but we were god damn trying!

So come late evening, as the sun was starting to set, I was fed and watered (pizza mainly) me and Rachel Jackson sat watching the wind drop (ideal) and the HUGE menacing black clouds build over the sea…<gulp>, interestingly the talk around the boat park was of it getting up to 20-30knots but Johnny was adamant that some weird meteorological “thing” was going to happen and the wind would drop more.

Anne Jackson and Claire were on before us and, as we saw the rain move slowly across the retail park and the dark clouds come above us, and the wind squalling in at 20-30 knots…. I started bricking myself… the last time I sailed an Enterprise was exactly 1 year ago at Southport 24 hour race, I’ve lost weight and Rachel is shall we say on the light side… all up weight was barely 16 stone, not ideally for the squally conditions!

So after lots of pannicking, debate etc we decided to put me helming and Stevie Graham in the front, Anne had had enough so we dived in (a shall we say slick but hairy changeover) out into the middle of the marine lake and then a quick gybe and settle down for our stint… Nailing that first gybe out of the changeover area was awesome, and my confidence came back in bucket-loads… so we had a great 2 hours sailing in decent breeze, with the occasional mad squall coming through, we both sailed well and the boat felt bloody fast!

So we had a great session and I was absolutely buzzing when I cam off the water…. proper big GRINS! So had a half decent hot shower, cup of tea and then went and cracked open a bottle of organic Gin & borrowed Tonic in cardboard Waybuloo cups ;-) So that set me up for a great evening of merriment and then bed in the not too early hours of the morning …

So what was I think around 5am in the morning the alarm went off… coffee, lots of coffee and food, lots of sausages were purchased to get me awake enough to sail the Ent (in first place Ent and in the top 10 overall) around the marine lake with Rachel.

The wind was decent, Rachel thankfully was awake and we went out in her first sail at the Southport 24 hour race and had a great sail, we were consistant, had good boat speed and managed to hold our position nicely (Thanks babes)…. come 8am our stint was done and it was time to retire to the team area, drink more coffee, try to sober up a bit and watch the racing…

So by the end of the 24 hours we were 1st Enterprise, the first time SoulSailor Racing Association has achieved this AND we had 3 * 1/4 lap penalties… ermm didnt I mention that? OK, I only did one of them ;-)

So another awesome event, Southport 24 hour race is a must attend event for all dinghy sailors… it was an awesome craic!

Thanks very much to the team, it was definitely a team event and we succeeded in awesome fashion… see you next year and hopefully before then!!

Aching to Fly!

So as I write this I ache, mentally a little and physically.

Sailing the Moth is awesome, I still haven’t got to grips with the beast yet, but each time I sail I get more confidence, more in tune and more flight-time.

Mentally its a challenge, the balance, the tuning of the rig, foils and physical position and movements… Rigging is now pretty much sorted, although I am still struggling with getting the mast up, not sure whether I’m doing something wrong, or lacking some upper body strength or just ‘cus I’m a short-arse?

I had some really decent foiling runs yesterday, the breeze was probably just sub-10knots the gusts may have been a little more, but not much… I loved the fact that at one point I was foiling but knelt on the centreline! Not sure how many foiling runs I had, but I managed a lot more variation in points of sailing and lots more course changing when up on the foils.

Strangely, and I think I may need external help on this, most of the foiling runs ended, at some point either because of the wind dropping, or more confusingly for no apparent reason… what tended to happen was either:

• Loss of control and a broach with the windward wing smacking the water….and capsize
• Foiling nicely and then a relatively slow heel to windward and then a sudden nose-dive, and a lurching to windward heel and capsize

Still in both the scenarios I didn’t need to worry about tacking… bloody boat did that for me as I was “ejected”! But why.. what is causing the end to the beauty of my foiling run?

• Weed?
• Issues on the surface of the foils?
• Body position?
• …or just the way it happens….(surely not?)

Anyway, the new aluminium trolley worked well I(thanks dad), nothing broke, reputation in tact…. just a shame no-one had a camera to snap my exploits!

I love the moth, I haven’t given it enough time, not enough time on the water, but I hope that Autumn and Winter will give me that time and I can saill in stronger winds and foil more consistently.

Sailing the moth is an awesome buzz, its a challenge on so many levels with associated grin-factor!

Day 2 - Toruk Makto – Glimpse of Success..

So Saturday dawned with a little more wind and the prospect of some reasonable sailing, not sure what the breeze was blowing, but it was fairly light maybe 7-8 knots max. Rigging second time round was a lot easier, although doing it in the limited space of the slip way was a pain.. Launching again seemed to be easier, grab toe-straps and boom and in to my neck… onshore wind and the way the shore slopes is a pain. But I got upright and sailing…

The balance–wire that is moth sailing is damned hard-work in light airs, some decent puffs came through enough for me to ride the wing properly and even in the really light breeze you could see her starting to plane nicely and the potential power… (also realised the toe-straps were far too short!)

 

I had a decent bit of time to start getting use to the controls etc then a a little increase in windspeed and I could feel the boat lifting, lifting, lifting <oh crap>, lifting until I must have been as high as feasible on my foils then… crash almost instantaneous drop back into the water… hmmm… tightened the elastic on the wand, a few mins later and the same again… up high and a scary crash back to the water… Grrrr.

Looked back at the rudder-foil setting and re-adjusted it to something that looked more reasonable…next gust and I got height and had a decent ride:

Man what a feeling…normal boat sounds, humming and then airborne silence, stability and euphoria!

Apparently my “whooops” could be heard from the shore… it was absolutely awesome!

The breeze remained fairly fickle and I figured it was best to give up for the day on a high! Coming back in was OK, but the trolley packing must have come off and putting the boat on the trolley at some point must have bent the outboard part of the pushrod (a-bloody-gain)…

So my to-do list is ever-bigger and includes, get a proper boat-cover sourcing a lighter weight trolley, straightening the pushrod and lengthening the toe-straps…

Apart from all that life is good!
Moth boat-bimbling FTW!

Day 1 - “Aerosol Ant Killer” (way too literal)

Ouch! Tuesday night was a painful experience in numerous ways.

Rigged my new International Moth OK, as expected the camber-inducers in the sail were a pain, but got them sorted.. trying to remember how Mike Cooke had rigged it on Saturday required a photographic memory that I didn’t have and after numerous false starts, it was all logical and we got there in the end!

Eventually I got the boat into the water, the breeze had dropped to around 4 knots I guess at the most… Launching was a huge challenge for me, (a) not being as fit as I need to be (b) being shorter than most… I need a better technique to get over the wings as the boat comes up… (or more wind and do the wing-scoop technique??)

Sailing the boat in sub-optimal breeze was a bit of a nightmare… also one of the camber-inducers had popped off (I forgot to tension the main properly once the mast was up, despite Mike warning me!) the whole boat in such light breeze just flopped around a lot while I tried to get the main set and the boat balanced… (my muscles are still aching as I write this).. inevitably resulting in my arse and elbow being in the wrong place and doing more swimming!

At some point, although I don’t recollect when, I must have trodden on the hydrofoil rod from the wand to the mainfoil and cracked the housing and bent the rod.. also the outboard end of the rod got bent and i really don’t know how that happened… But hey there wasn’t enough wind to even think about foiling so that didn’t effect things on the water, although it really p!55ed me off when I realised when I was back on shore!!

So I spent nearly an hour trying to get to grips with the boat in conditions I probably wouldn’t sail in again… I have to admit I was pretty despondent yesterday evening, Had I made the right choice of boat/challenge was uppermost in my mind and thinking about my lack of progress, the breakage and the technique struggle I had in getting the boat upright when I launched / capsized didn’t help either… I have aches in muscles I had forgotten about, bruises and cuts both physically and mentally and a significant investment sat on the shore that can’t be given up on.

But it was day 1, it was way too light to get the boat to perform properly and it was the 2nd time I have sailed this year, probably around the 10th or so in the last 12 months…

So repairs have started on the push-rod…

I’m watching lots of video’s of Moths to “learn” technique…

And I am now looking forward to getting back out on the water and trying a little harder, with a little more technique and a little more wind and then I’m sure a little more positive results will follow..

Freakin’ Foiler…

So I finally did it, taking into account some of the other stuff that’s happening with “me” at the moment it may not have been the most sensible move, but god it feels good!

I trekked down to the other side of Bristol, to see Mike Cooke of Aardvark Racing to  pick up his sisters Axiom 3 (3190) International Moth. Some pictures below (not me) of Mike and the boat last year:

It’s a decent looking boat, 3 or 4 years old, solid, would probably benefit from a new main at some point, but for the moment the MSL10 or MS11 (it doesn't say!) will do me fine while I work-out how to keep the tramps and the red hull above the water!

The boat design does look absolutely amazing, and I am bummed that i didn’t get a chance to sail her at the weekend, but I’m hopeful that I’ll get a sail over the next week and post some proper reactions!!

It’s not until you get up-close-and-personal with these beauties and look at they way they’re put together, the lightness of the hull, the form of the hydrofoils (see above) that you can see the class has evolved massively over the last 20 years or so that I’ve been watching them from afar.

I’m really looking forward to the challenges (mental and physical) as well as the new era of me making and evolving “boat bits” in order to get the most out of the class. There’ll be lots more to say about this topic!

BTW any thought as to a name for the boat? “Aerosol Ant Killer” was my thought.. what’s yours?

Bloody Impatient!

So now I have 110% decided to buy a foiling moth and got first refusal on a second-hand Axiom 3 through Mike Cooke of Aadvark Technologies, I’m starting to get impatient… I always want stuff I have my mind set on now, or at least next weekend… but I need to be patient..

I wonder how mad I am, but life is for living and this boat will either breathe life into my sailing or physically kill me!

Certainly I need to start getting into shape.. running around after 3 kids helps, but I think some sensible eating and drinking and masses of WII Fit may also help a little!

I’ve got Stevie @ P&B already lined up to sort a cover for me…I spent the morning watching Colin @ Draycote rig, launch and sail.. and I keep watching video’s and reading the “moth blogs”… hooked potentially, even without a boat!

tap…tap…tap…tap…waiting….excited….waiting…tap..impatient…waiting….

I Want it Wet & Wild – A Mid-life Crisis?

So, I think I want one of these… I’ve got the Miracle for sailing with the kids, but I do miss getting on the water on my own, don’t forget my roots are in the Optimist..single-handed sailing is something that I’ll never grow out…

Actually I really want one of these, its a foiling International Moth...

So currently I’m looking to invest, purchase, blow some money on a Foiling International Moth..

I may get a Low-Rider i.e. a non-hydrofoil one, play with that for a while and then get it converted… but ideally, mad, stupid, insane or not, I want to go straight into a foiler….

The challenge will be awesome, just check out the footage below taken at the Moth Worlds being held in Dubai currently…

So, the old, the original, Soulsailor, may be back with blog posts about the thrills and spills of trying to go freakin’ fast without, hopefully, seriously injuring myself..

So, the plan is:

1. Convince wife the investment is worth it (gotta be better than a sports car?)
2. Any of you with contacts in the Moth fleet put the feelers out (sorry no pun intended) for a second-hand boat
3. I need to get fitter!
4. I’ll keep trawling the web sites for a bargain
5. I’ll keep dreaming!

Fast & Low my Friends… Fast & Low & Close(ish) to the Water…

Job One…

So after a fair few days of tweaking, the blog is now up and running, content is in from the old www.soulsailor.co.uk  and www.fluffycloudsofinnovation.com and I’m pretty happy with the layout, design and function…

This was job one on my way towards being Fookin Amazin’ – Now it’s time to start delivering quality adding value and engaging everyone.

Feedback is always welcome… but remember it’s after 1am when I’m writing, I haven’t been drinking, and its been at least 8 hours since my last coffee; so I’m kinda sensitive now… Any criticism leave till after my first coffee of the morning please!!

Draycote Christmas?

Google Maps have update their images of Draycote Water and the surrounding areas recently.

What the hell is that white stuff on the water?? Anyone got any ideas?

Is it:

• Snow?
• Ice?
• White-Horses?
• Reflections?
• Lots of white boats with white sails??

View Larger Map

I would be extremely interested to know what you think the white areas on the water actually are..let me know in the comments...

Technorati Tags: Soulsailor,Sailing,Draycote,Google Maps

Sailing Again and Kitting Out

So Saturday was fun, spent some top time with the family and then went to catch the last bit of the Draycote Enterprise Open... Richie Adams won.. with Stevie crewing, Jon/Alex 2nd and Youngy 3rd... but there were only 5 boats entered... really not good for the Ent fleet and I think next year they have now been forced into sharing the open with another fleet, such a shame, with so much good water and usually good breezes and always well run racing that they didn't get more boats... so such is life, good to catch up afterwards with a few of them for a beer, checked the Miracle was ok and generally chilled...

Sunday dawned, did the usual family activities through the morning and then jetted off to Draycote in the afternoon with the kids to see if it wasnt toooo windy to sail, got there and it was great, nice force 2, enough to actually move and really try her out and for the kids to get to grips with the boat properly...

Bought some proper sailing footgear for the kids, nice and warm and comfy, rigged up and we all went out...

I did all the helming this week, kids "played" with the jib sheets and leaning out etc, I have to admit, I'm pretty impressed with how they have picked up the process of tacking and gybing... spinnakers are a little more tricky, but will come with practice, hopefully!

So we had a good sail got the kite up and after a little faffing about, got the bugger flying nicely... not sure I would be quite as calm in a race situation, but if I'm gonna keep my kids interested in crewing me, I'll have to bite my lip...very hard!

So after a while, youngest was getting cold, so we dumped him in at the shore and me and the eldest went out for another 20 mins sail... slotted in behind the lead Miracle in the afternoon race for a few mins, just to get a vague view as to our boat speed and stuff, all looked good. certainly wasn't loosing out so happy with that (so why did I decide to fiddle with the boat set-up when I got in???), then we beat up to the North east shore, tacked around and popped up the kite for a nice broad reach back to the club, eldest had the chance to have a proper go at the spinnaker, without his brother getting in the way etc, went well, he understood what I was explaining, I think, and seemed to be enjoying himself...

So after a good sail, we popped the boat back in and, once in it's berth, I started to check the boat set-up... rig-tension and mast rake being what I was gonna worry about for the moment... spreaders etc can be fiddled with "over-winter" when I take it home...

So mast rake was out (from what I could tell) by about an inch and a half and tension was very light as I suspected.. dropped the rig back on the shrouds a hole to see what that difference made...better but not perfect... oh and then came the question do you measure it to the highest point of the transom or the bottom of the "dip", about 2 or so inches difference...hmmm I was measuring to the top, a local guy thought it was to the top..arse.. now I'm confused.. also fiddling with the rake knackered the "rope and pulley" system the previous owner had for whopping on the rig-tension... it was a system I didn't like and promptly started trying to re-think and re-implement.. but it was getting late and cold, I was getting stressed and not really getting anywhere, so I gave up went to the bar, chilled and went home for Sunday dinner with the wife and kids and dog...

Great weekend...

So convinced the kids are into sailing (for the moment) and after trying a 3mm wetsuit on my eldest which was too good a fit (no growing space) and I think too thin for our winters; they really need 5mm steamers to sail during the winter and be "comfortable" and enjoy the experience... my dad reminded me that the wetsuits he made me as a child (nice black neoprene and yellow tapes!) were 5mm... so we said no thanks to the 3mm wetsuits and I've ordered two Tiki steamers off the Internet, hopefully be arriving in the next few days!!

So, this week / weekend I need to get the boat "re-tuned".... forecast looks not so good for sailing with the kids - 8 degrees C and 13mph-17mph, so we shall see - may sail, may not, but come the following weekend, we'll have steamers... a highly-tuned boat and bags of enthusiasm... I hope!

Long time...

Time is just not on my side currently, it's trickling away from me faster than the tide...

So, quick re-cap before Monday morning grabs me and the melody-go-round fires off again!

Midland areas at Staunton Harold, 20 boats, kinda dissapointing I think? wind was fairly light, sun was out for a bit then it rained solid for the night and next day! We had a good first race, first round the windward mark, but then lost a fair bit and ended up 6th... after that it went bad...stabalised and basically although it was a good weekend, close racing, great beer (including the Captain G&T that me and Steve invented), broken sleep with the rain thudding on the roof and then more average sailing in the rain...sigh, we ended up 10th.... not happy really with that...again... getting boring this me not being happy with my results!

Then last Sunday I took the kids out in my dads Solo for the first time in a while... Youngest is a bit of a nutter / ninja-crew in the boat... no fear and really loves it, eldest is a little more controlled but once I got him helming he got really into it...so much so that I managed to get 5 mins sat on the foredeck, legs round the mast being a kid again! BVloody fantastic hour and a half sailing!

Then this weekend there was 2 days of "fun" at the club.... Saturday evening there was a BBQ and disco.... the sun was very warm, no breeze the BBQ was great...especially the toasted marshmallows, I had a good few mints of "Hooky", we watched the sun set with the kids playing on the shore and the music drifting out of the clubhouse... I find that kinda think amazingly chilling...

Then today was the inter-fleet champs... 6 teams of 10 or more sailors form the different fleets - Managerie, Fireball, Youth&Juniors, Miracle, Flying 15's and Solo's... very short races (10-15 mins) infront of the club house in either Laser 2's, Laser Vago's or Pico's... I had the pleasure of sailing with Lance (crewing once, we came 4th) and helming twice...first in both :-) the rest of the team had some good races and some bad... my dad capsized in 3rd place on the finish-line in the Pico...not happy! In the end after a stilt-walker, magicion, bouncy-castle, sumo-suit wrestling, sailing demo's, windsurfing have-a-go's and stacks of races.... Youth&Juniors won... well done... we came 4th or 5th but it was a fun day, I think and the wind held up and the sun shone so most people were smiling as they went home.....

Anyway lastly, best give you the recipe for Captain G&T:

Any Good landlord will tell you to stop drinking if you order this becuase in order to drink it you must have drunk way too much already....

The woman at Staunton Harold that served us obviosuly hadnt though it through... so:

Captain G&T
1 measure of Gin
1 measure of Captains Rum
Some Tonic
Shaken and Slurred

...it turns a lovely golden colour and tastes like crap... still and midnight-ish who actually cares...?
sailing boat soulsailor

It's Time 4 A Change...?

..and I really need the assistance of the collective Sailing-bloggers out there to guide me into a new sailing direction...

So, Enterprise sailing seems to be very unfortunately waining... still doing some but not as much as I want so I need some other water/wind/boat stimulation.

Solo sailing... this was the obvious choice as Draycote Water SC has a stack of Solo's out most weeks BUT has it turned into cheque book sailing, please someone tell me if its different, but it appears that the new boats are winning and the older ones are struggling to keep up?? (thats what my dad says)

Plus my dad's talking about giving up the Solo after this year and buying a small 2-hander to sail with my kids...

So, some options from me......

1. Buy a Solo, hold out for a bloody quick bargain and until that happens sail my dad's pretty quick Solo as much as is reasonable

2. Buy a Miracle, what you say a slow two man boat with hardly a fleet at Draycote... well this is true but it would be good for my dad to take the kids out in and if they take to it, theres the opportunity (wih my eldest) to do some events... (and I'd get my dad to keep his Solo so we could use either)

3. Just Sail the Enterprise, maybe I should just be satisfied with the sailing I've got with James and occasionaly sail my dads boat as well.. think of all that extra time for DIY and stuff!

4. Buy a single-handed speed machine, now that would be fun.. but I don';t want to waste mone like I didi with the nearly-forgotten Laser.EPS

5. Sod Sailing... take up surfing or windsurfing or just give it up completely.....

What do you guys think....? Don't forget I'll be blogging about whatever it is forever so it's upto you to make it an interesting choice for an interesting read!!

sailing boat soulsailor

Easter Sailing...!

Yey I went sailing! So it feels soo too long since I was sailing, after the dissapointing "mis-start" to the season of the Rugby&Daventry Open last month, getting made redundant and then a hectic few weeks of Birthdays for my family it was nice to suddenly get the opportunity to sail for myself.

Actually it was a freakin' fantastic Easter Monday... woke up, walked the dog... Family and I went to Draycote... sun shone, wind blew pleasantly (F2-F3)...

It started as an opportunity to sail with my kids, but my dad was bummed at his performance on the Sunday races so he lent me his boat :-)

So me and my youngest went off onto the water first... wan't very many minutes until he was grinning from ear to ear as we raced across the reservoir, him fishing for trout with the painter with his legs wrapped round the mast on the foredeck of my dads Solo... then he did some helming, some leaning out and had some more fishing with the end of the mainsheet out the stern of the boat... 40 mins later and some real nice quality father-son time on the water we headed in for my eldests turn... So back out again, some dark clouds managed to bring some decent gusts across the lake so we did soem nice planing (just) and he soon got back into the groove of helming the boat (damned impressive), but tacking and gybing didn't really happen, but hey its only April we've got another 6 months to perfect things and really have some fun!

So after another 30-40 mins of great sailing and fun we came in, grabbed some lunch (thanks Claire) and went off to do the Easter Monday Severn Trent Water Board pursuit race... There was about 45 boats and 12 Solo's in the mix, the breeze was light but probably not light enough for the Solo's to be in the chocolates... so with my dad's brand new Edge sail on for the first time, I set out for the start line, eager to get back into the sailing groove and see whether I could prove myself against the old-hands of the fleet (the Mikes) and the new-boyz (Norm, Greg etc)... Had a good start but didn't get enough boat-speed and wasn't in the groove enough to point high and sail fast so I soon ended up on a one-sided beat in dirty air.. freed off a bit and got into a half decent position, enjoying myself being on the water... first beat was a long bugger from the damn across to 'C' on the far side of the reservoir... by the time we got there I was in about 6th place, but knew I had the speed and brains to eek my way up the fleet a few more notches before the 90min race was over... downwind speed again didn't let me down and I managed to roll one boat on the way down the first leg, with the likes of Jon and Rich Byne chasing me a little too hard and Mike P using his years of Solo expeience against me. (damn he's quick when he wants to be!) So the rest of the race was pretty good, nice close sailing, no real chance of any of the Solo's being in the main prizes...

By the end of the race I'd managed to drag my arse upto 4th place, right behind Norm... or Dr.Norman Bird as he is now, used to be my crew in 420's (he split my head open just on my eyebrow at the Spa regatta in belgium with the spinnaker pole..thnxs!), he's sailed alsorts an dis now at that pointy end of 505's when he's not Solo'ing... Anyway, got upto Norm but he's a vicious bugger and there was no way I was gonna get past him downwinf to windward... i made a few tries at diving to leeward but there just wasnt the wind or waves to pull it off... up the last main beat I did get past him on a good lift, but when I tacked back about 10 boatlengths to windward the wind died on me, he stayed in pressure and worked the boat up in front of me... damn.. make 10 boatslengths, loose 10 boatslengths don't ya just love sailing!

So that was it.. a great sail, no stress, no hassle, just good close fleet racing... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

So, finished the pursuit in 13th place, 4th Solo... I was happy, my kids were happy and hopefully Claire was happy too.... Happy Easter!

It is sooo good to be back... now I definately think I need to buy a boat to sail locally... I also need someone to offer me a boat and crew to do some Ent events in June and August...pleaze?

Right I need to go to bed now... I've got an interview in London in 12 hours time!

sailing boat soulsailor

Nearly...

I nearly sailed today, just a local race at Rugby & Daventry SC.... Enterprise Open, about 6 entrants, we weren't one of them...


The boat, sails and helm and crew got there.. covers off the boat...but that was as far as it went..


I stayed to chat to my buddies and watch the first race...



Cold and bloody breezy (Draycote 15 miles north was recording consistantly 30mph ++ winds all morning), got there nice bacon sarnie and a coffee, everyone else went out sailing (blasting, flapping, healing, capsizing), we didn't.




Race 1 - Gez (last years winner) and Dennis lead, Youngy and new crew were second (with storm sail up!) Steve and Chessie were third... everyone capsized, everyone was knackered...



Everyone was happy (ish) so I went home then...


Apparently:


Race 2 - Steve & Chessie had a good start (only ones on the line?) Gez chasing.... Steve gobbed-it-in, Gez overtook... Steve got it back-up again and went bloody well (got past Gez)... more breeze cam through and horizontal hail storm... Steve went in, Gez went passed race and event abandoned (thanks for the report Steve)...

Rest of the Pics I took are on Flickr. Real shame we didn't sail...

sailing boat soulsailor

Crufts 2007

So it's that time again, me and Murphy are off to Crufts in the morning (Thursday) to take part in the Good Citizens Dog Scheme Gold Award Demonstrations... 3 "shows" are on tomorrow and we're back on Saturday for another 2; it's gonna be wicked for Murphy (and sad 'cus it's his last no doubt).

I'll put up some pics here or on Flickr and maybe even some video may find it's viral way into the blogosphere.

dog Crufts soulsailor

Persistant Web (Lifelogging?)

What is persistance, it's stuff that hangs around for more than a blink of an eye... for that reason Twitter isn't persistant, breath isn't persistant, but the blog for me is...

So much of our on-line lives is now persisted, emails, blogs, RSS, comments on blogs, Flickr pics, video etc etc. the concept lifelogging has appeared, soon I feel it will be joined with Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) a twist on the crappy CRM that we all put up with now...

If you look at my side-bar, part the way down, you'll see a gadget called BloggerSnap, it's great for free it will shop the latest web-cam photo from one of your readers (if they're brave enuff)... a non-persistant track of those with something to show that visit your site.. no trail, no breadcrumbs just a fleeting image. For a small fee (around £4 pa) it will provide a link to 150 of your past flittering images...better, more persistant.. but is that what the virtual world is coming too... for free you can post your thoughts, you can make a small impact into the fabric of the blogo-sphere, but to have a persistant thought you need to pay hard cash...????

Jeeze that was a bit heavy.. I like lifeblogging, but is anyone interested? What was the last "think" I twittered, does anyone know...care....seek that information... some may, through curiosity...most won't unless there's value to them...

What do I think... keep feeding the virtual world snippets of your life.... the bits you're happy to share, the bits that add value (make people smile, give them knowledge, invoke feelings) to the world....

...for my part in this pissed/persistant web, i'm going to go and start my 3rd glass of wine....that moment won't happen again, but i'll photograph it to give it a little more persistance than the headache in the morning... cheers my darlings...

sailing boat soulsailor lifelogging

Current Winner - SoulSailor Logo

Look guys, if you don't come up with anything bloody cool soon then the new SoulSailor logo will be one of the little Mikons I knocked up tonite in-between bouts of depression, worry, euphoria etc.

Come on guys, sort yourselves out and get artistic or summat...

sailing boat soulsailor

Stumbling in Water

Ok, so a nice cryptic title!

This post continues with the current stream of posts about sailing (wind, water, waves) and Web-version-whatever.

Recent posts about this include:
Also, Adam whose spending time messing about in sailboats and geeking-out like me has a great post about side-bar gadgets...

So, I recently came across StumbleUpon and found Ti11erman there. What is StumbleUpon, well its a social network (but then what isn't) and its a discovery site for people with interests "like wot you got".

Anyway, what I really wanted to get down to saying was this... Sailors don't give RSS the love it deserves, the anmount of Stumbled-Upon web sites I have come across that don't have RSS feeds and thyen it gets difficult when you have lots of people you are following to be arsed with the ones without an RSS feed... lifes hard!

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Right, I now apologise for the brevity and lack of clarity of this post... some "stuff" is going down that has a major effect on my life... I'll tell you later and then maybe re-edit tthis post to make more sense....

BTW - I got this email today!
Congratulations - you're on the MillionDollarAvatar homepage today ( Feb 27, 2007 UTC)! Your avatar will appear on the homepage for 24 hours.Please visit www.milliondollaravatar.com to view your profile.- Kevin and The MDA Crew

sailing boat soulsailor

Top 3 Thursday Things!

OK, I've spent way too much time this evening looking at blog related, community, viral typee sites, so here's my run-down of the top 3 that I think you should look at tonight...



http://twitter.com

So this is a weird service that I haven't got my head round yet, but I think my prove quite viral and possibly more useful the more "friends" and "interesting people" you have on it...

Basically you post random text as your "twitter" and it ends up in this great public timeline of chatter... you can "ubscribe" to specific people and sift out only the people you follow...weird..maybe?

So Fuff from Fuff Blog is on there, so that's cool, but at the moment there isn't (unless I'm blinded) any way to tag yourself and then do intelligent searches i.e. tag: Sailing....shame, but I'll suggest the feature! Let me know if any of you guys end up on twitter and we can star gaining some value...?

BTW: this mashup of a feed off Twitter random "people pics/video" and ambient music is way cool - http://incident.net/works/flussgeist/waiting/flash/index.html



http://milliondollaravatar.com

Ok this is in the same kinda vein as Bla.st, but is kinda more personal. You put up a pic of you, link to your site, tag your profile. They have a front page and a back page which shows random members and theres RSS feeds of various stuff... [update: I just popped up on their front page - way kool!]

Every 24 hours display 100 random avatars on the homepage. Every 5 minutes display 100 random avatars on the backpage. Every day generate "The Daily 20" - a random selection of member sites and create a subscription feed for users to subscribe to via email or their RSS reader. Let users find any and all members by tag or general search.

Another one for you guys to try just to make it easier for people out there to discover you... you know they want to...let them :-)




http://www.isporty.com

OK, lastly.. is a UK based sport specialised MySpace typee clone.. not sure about this one, I've registerd (Soulsailor of course). I think it may be a really good site, you can create virtual places for clubs (like Soulsailor Racing Assoc. and Draycote Water S.C that i've created), you can have a blog, they have google map integration, video integration and possibly Flikr but I dont find that yet... at this late hour theres too much on the site for me to make sense, but maybe you can have a look and see what you think...

sailing boat soulsailor web2.0

Top 5 Sailing Blog Experiences

There's lots of posts about the best blogs etc, this one is around my 5 best personal experiences of the sailing blogs I track currently...

It must be said that I am currently tracking around 43 sailing related blogs, how many do you track? Anyway, here' goes my current top 5 blogs and why, in no order but definately my top 5 at the moment...

Number 1 - Zensekai II - By Sea
I love what I get from this, good decent sized posts, no crap, almost short-stories of the day and, seeing as I'm trying to revert back to my old chilled-out self a bit, the Zen side really appeals...

Number 2 - fuffblog
I think it's cus she's from the UK, leads what sems to be a similar lifestyle to me, not enough sailing, work hassles etc, love the mix of stuff and the insight to a similarly chaotic world...

Number 3 - Proper Course
Well he had to be there somewhere, so this is an interesting one, I do enjoy the mix of posts he does, the occasional wanderings into the insane and the learning points are great... I do feel some tension between us though.. kinda fel we have been in "blogging competition" since we both bubbled to the surface of the blogging world.. not in a bad way, and to be fair over the last 60-12 months he's been "beating" me with the quality of his blog, but I think a little friendly competition never hurt anyone did it, especially sailors!

Number 4 - HorsesMouth
This is a classic that seems to get better with age, the pics and video-cults are a great weekly diversion for me, thankyou!

Number 5 - CampbellSailing.com
Lastly but not leastly, I've only just gotten into this, but I really enjoy reading through the Monday Morning Tactician posts, great stuff, really makes you think and he writes the stuff really well..

But where are all the UK sailing bloggers, I mean I have a few in Google Reader, but no Olympic hopeful's, no UK based World champions etc... am I missing something, do they not blog?

I'm gonna make a conserted effort to find the elusive UK-stars, but if you see them, let me know please...

sailing boat soulsailor