Armistice

Something I came across that I found quite moving:
In 1944 Major John Pott was shot on the battlefield in woods near Arnhem. Struggling to write what he imagined was a final letter to his new wife he was discovered nearly 20 hours later by German troops and subsequently incarcerated for the rest of World War Two in a Prisoner of War camp until released by American in 1945. His grandson, Joel Pott, lead singer of rock band Athlete has penned Black Swan Song which the band will be performing at the Royal British Legion Silence in the Square event on the 11th Nov 2009.

A Friday afternoon sail

Friday afternoon I went for a sail. Normally Sally and I would go exploring the local countryside on foot and go for a sail on Saturday afternoon. However the  weather forecast for Saturday was for very high winds (and they were not wrong!) so we went sailing on Friday instead but Sally didn't feel up to it so I went sailing single handed, Sally sat in the club house and read a book and took the photos you see on this page.

It was a good sail, especially as the wind freshened and I could get the boat planing in the gusts. It was a useful time to get to know the lake, what the wind does, and it does some strange things depending on where you are on the lake! I must have spent a good 2 hours on the water, maybe more, sailing in really lovely conditions with the trees just begining to turn making for beautiful colours . There was no room in the boat for the stresses of the last few weeks so even though they were still waiting for me at the shore at least I had a few hours respite. One advantage of non-tidal sailing - the water is always there when you want to go sailing. But I do miss the waves.

A great innovation

Until last year the only flyaway jib pole on an Enterprise was when the crew lost the bloody thing over the side!! But last year the Enterprise Association permitted the use of flyaway jibpoles for all but national events and at the AGM it was adopted into the class rules. The flyaway jibpole is a great innovation. I was sceptical to begin with and resisted the move, primarily on the grounds of a big expense for little gain, but saw an opportunity to create a cheap home made version out of an old aluminium extending broom handle.

It was only 1.5M long but it proved the value of the system and this summer I bought the 2M carbon fibre kit from P&B and it works even better although I have modified the layout from their recommended layout.

These images show my configuration for the flyaway jibpole:

On the P&B layout they put the turning block and cleat on the deck next to the mast step. I think this is prone to the jib sheets catching on it during a tack so I have lead the rope down the mast into the boat to a turning pulley on the hog and then to a cleat under the thwart near the centreboard casing. This gives an added advantage that, when on Starboard, I can also reach the pole downhaul, and the being just that bit further back gives an added advantage in windy conditions because the crew doesn't even have to reach forward to the foredeck position to release the pole downhaul.

In addition they show the downhaul rope being tied onto the clew; I use a plastic bobble which I trap in the jib sheet loop through the clew (see picture).

So what does it do and just exactly what are the advantages?

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  It is much easier and faster to deploy and recover than the 'manual' jibstick
  
  
  
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  You cannot lose it over the side!
  
  
  
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  It can push the jib further out to windward when goosewinging so it catches more wind.
  
  
  
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  It tightens the leach of the jib making it more efficient
  
  
  
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  It means that the crew doesn't have to stand up to deploy and recover the pole, thus the boat is more stable.
  
  
  
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  The crew doesn't have to move forward to deploy and recover so the bows doesn't bury, a big issues in a blow!
  
  
  

These are the advantages I have experienced and they make a big difference. One other is that it makes it possible to use the jib pole when sailing single handed.

How does it work? Well there is a light weight rope that is connected to the clew of the job and passes through the end of the pole and exits through a pulley at the other end of the pole. The rope is fed down the side of the mast to a turning block and cleat. The pole is connected at one end to a line that runs up the front of the mast and has an elastic cord that pulls it up the mast such that when it is not deployed the pole dangles from the elastic cord. It is deployed by pulling the rope which pushes the pole down on to the jib clew and pushes the sail out from the mast as far as required. It is recovered by simply releasing the rope from the cleat and the elastic cord pulls the pole back up the mast.

How do you use it? When reaching the best way is for the jib to be pulled in so that the clew is near the fairlead and then to pull on the pole and easing the jib sheet to the best jib setting and tensioning the leach to get all three jib telltails flying correctly - ie streaming on the leeward side and slightly lifting on the windward side of the sail.

Here I am on a reach. Notice in the picture on the left, how the jib leach is not bar tight but curves gently, parallel to the mainsail leach, and the whole sail has the correct angle to the wind. Without the pole (and this picture shows my prototype home made one) the leach would twist such that the lower half of the sail would be oversheeted and the upper part undersheeted. Compared to the picture on the right taken in 2008 prior to having the flyaway jibpole where you can see how much the jib leach is twisting and the top of the sail is actually back winded.

Here we are goosewinged. The pole (and this one is the P&B 2M pole) could probably go out a little further.

Lastly why not check out the video of the NW Ent Championships and spot the boats on the reach using the flyaway jib pole - it makes interesting watching and you can see how well the system works.

More information can be found on the NW Enterprise association website under the 'news' section. There are 3 articles all of which are worth reading.

The Enterprise association website also has some info.

Sailing with my Bride

This weekend my wife and I went sailing together at Ripon Sailing Club. First on Saturday afternoon sailing amongst the young sailors on their Toppers and a few others out in a variety of boats including a number of Enterprises. The winds were light and we had a few hours of doing some basic sailing manoeuvres, teaching Sally how to move in the boat, what to do with the sail and when. We had a good few hours out on the water and went home tired, with a few aches but happy to be sailing together.


Sunday we went to South Milford Methodist Church were Sally is the minister and was taking the service. afterwards we went to the Sailing club and were in good time for the last race of the day in beautiful sailing conditions - a nice breeze, sunshine - fantastic!

Sally was nervous about racing but we got out on the water a little while before the start and sailed about just to get familiar with the conditions. With no watch (thanks to my daughter inadvertently taking to Uni with her) our start was guess work but it was reasonable if too close to the leeward bank. We were 5th at the first mark and managed to stay close to the top boats - the leader (the hot shot) got clear away but he does sail extremely well. We were caught by the 6th and 7th boats who slipped passed us when I overstood a mark but we overtook them both before the end of the 1st lap. We took another boat on the 2nd lap and held onto our 4th place to the finish. Mid fleet and I thought it was a reasonable result for our first race together in a long time.

Over the course of the race our team work got better and Sally started to move much more easily and sympathetically to the movement of the boat as the gusts hit and the boat heeled. Our tacking was very sluggish but it improved over the race; role-tacking is a skill yet to be mastered, and much the same for our gybes but we will get there. Next week Sally and I will sail on the Saturday - all being well and on Sunday I shall trail the boat via Sheffield to pick up Jo and then on to Rotherham for an open meeting. well that’s the plan and I should get my watch back too!

First Day at Ripon SC

Well today we joined Ripon SC. We trailed Goosey to the Club, paid our fees and joined in the last race of the day. To our suprise we won the race by a country mile! We started well and led for the first few legs but allowed the local hot shot space to get through at a gybe mark. For most of the race we chased him as he gradually pulled away and the boats behind us gradually gained. It was extremly tricky sailing with very - and I mean VERY strong gusts ( 25mph +) with big shifts in direction which made for some very hairy and exhilertaing sailing. Righht at the end of the penultimate lap we pulled up on and and passed the leader on the beat and went on to pull away a big lead by the end of the race. It was good fun and very energetic. One second you're hiking for all your worth the next your diving back into the boat to stop it from capsizing to windward! Then there were those screeming reaches with a bank looming up so very fast and the realisation that at the mark you have no option but to gybe because there just isn't the room to do anything else! Scary! Then there were the rapid jump accelerations when a huge gust hits and - no joke - I though the Rig was about to part company such was the impact of the gust as the boat leapt up onto the plan and shot off like a demented beast! Then there were those crazy moments when the wind just vanished and the sails hang lifeless waiting for even a faint whisp of wind to capture. What a laugh - crazy racing. It was fun but I have to say that on balance I would rather be racing on the open water of the sea at Snettisham but hey I don't have that option and I am sure I will learn a great deal about racing and sailing at Ripon SC. Here are some shots from todays action.

Last of the Norfolk Summer wine

The day finally came - the day I knew was inevitable - the day I would leave Snettisham Beach Sailing club for waters new and uncharted (by me at least). The day marked the end of an era and the last summer of racing on the Norfolk coast, from now on I will be a visitor when I return, and I will return!

The reason for this sad day is our move of home to North Yorkshire, just east of Leeds in a place called Sherburn-in-Elmet - several miles from the coast! For a while it looks like we shall be pond sailors and the top favorite club in our vicinity is Ripon SC where there is an excellent fleet of Enterprises.

This summer has seen some great sailing and some frustration. This year in spite of being the quickest boat in the Enterprise fleet of the North West Norfolk Sailing Association Regatta we failed to retain our title. The reason was simply too many errors in too many races, we finished third overall but right upto the last day anyone of three of us could have won the event, it was that close.

This weekend saw the beginning of a new phase of my sailing, namely sailing with my wife crewing. Having moved house two weeks ago we returned to Snettisham with our tent for the August Bank holiday weekend with the plan of sailing together and then to bring the boat away with us to our new home. Sally has not sailed for many years and we have done little sailing together in the past so this new era heralds a new learning curve with many hurdles not least the need for us both to lose weight if we are to be competitive (something we need to do anyway for much better reasons: i.e. our long term health!! )

Saturday was deemed too windy by my wife so I was crewed by another Enterprise helm who discovered that crewing has a lot of challenges and getting the jib in tight takes some effort but pays dividends in sailing close to the wind. We had one capsize - the result of the crew slipping during a tack - but we were soon up and racing again.

The next day I managed to get Sally out in the boat but the conditions were if anything more windy. We didn't race but reached back and forth enjoying the incredible speed and the tension of sailing always on the edge of disaster. It was hard work and we soon came in but I reckon if Sally enjoyed that, and she did, then there would be few problems with fear in the future but we have some work to do to sail well together.

For a crew of two to get the best out of a boat there needs to be a degree of physical fitness, agility and knowledge of how to move in the boat. I liken it a sort of dancing on water where the movements of boat and crew need to be synchronous. There is footwork for each manoeuvre, knowledge and experience of just how fast to move and when, how to control the sails and the helm. When the team work is good the boat seems to manoeuvre effortlessly and quickly in all kinds of conditions and over long periods of time - and this is just one element of successful racing!

No doubt I will continue to sail with Jo, my daughter and possible Emma, my eldest (although she has her own boat) but it is inevitable that both will want to do other things with their time and it is right that they should. It is equally right that where possible Husband and Wife should enjoy doing things together and that is what I hope Sally and I will able to do in the years to come with our sailing.

The weekend was marred by the behaviour of a few unknown individuals who decided to 'steel' a couple of boats from the club, for some unknown reason, one they left upside down on the beach, the other they dragged on it trolley half a mile down the beach and over the sea wall into the bushes where they set up camp and proceeded to drink the contents of a least 100 can of larger.

They left an absolute mess and seriously damaged the boat they stole and then abandoned, the police did get involved but quite frankly they is little chance of the yobs responsible being caught. Perhaps the best thing that came out of it was the 20 or so club members who together recovered the boat and cleared away the mess and for me it was a lovely thing to see a community taking care of their own and their environment. A complete contrast to the company of idiots that made the mess and did all the damage. Long may sailing clubs promote such positive actions and attitudes!

Video of Enterprise racing

A decent bit of video of Enterprise racing.

Lots of leasons to learn through just watching. Look at the mark roundings, spot the good ones and the rubbish ones. Look at the effects of heeling and see the leeway slip and the amout of drag producing helm used to keep the boat on course! observe the positions of the crew to promote planing and the way they respond to gusts (or not). All good stuff.