Hi Guys - thanks for looking in
We've both had a really enjoyable but very tiring day - it's amazing just how much you walk up and down the pond with these boats. It's been some eighteen months since we sailed (raced) on a weekly basis but neither of us feel we could go back to that routine again. That said it's been nice to see all the guys again and catch up. My friend Colin brought his big A rater - a bit longer and much beamier and heavier but reasonably matched so we had some good friendly racing in a fair but fickle breeze which made for interesting but very variable sailing speeds. Sorry Whiskey - I did take the camera but so engrossed with sailing and talking (probably not in that order
) I completely forgot about it
The boat performed better than hoped for - handled very easily and turned better than expected. This boat was built in the sixties and was designed for vane sailing - the kind of rudder and fin/skeg usually fitted to those designs not always as effective under radio control as the usual all moving rudders are.
There are two independent controls Eric, rudder and sails. The two sails are connected to a winch and both operate in unison.
The hull is made from layers of uniform thickness planks - about an inch thick in this case. These planks are cut to a wide outer and inner profile 'slab' then glued on top of each other to form the basic hull The outside is then shaped then the inside carved away to leave a minimum thickness throughout the entire hull. An old way of making such a hull it's a labour of love by any means and this one was done superbly - whoever made it originally certainly was a skilful craftsman. Time and timber must have been much cheaper then!
Yep - don't take long to get out to the shid
The area in front of it is the last area of the garden requiring major attention but that is definitely not on the cards for this year
Well, that's it for a short diversion, though perhaps maybe not quite. Some may have seen ref elsewhere to trying to find an old photo of a pair of oscillators I made years back. Not much luck there but during the root out up the loft I did come across this ....
Occasion is the launch of the beam trawler Suffolk Mariner at Richards Shipyard at Lowestoft circa 1961. Yep that's yours truly, sixteen years old, newly apprenticed and having to endure the ignominy, as all apprentices had to, of presenting the bouquet to the launch Mistress. A young WREN, her name was Susan Frith - (how's that for a 'short' memory and no it's not written on the back
) Note the lack of any suitable wear - a shipyard in those days was a rum old place to work especially in winter as I'm sure there are some on here who could confirm and work-wear wasn't even invented - well not on Richards it wasn't!
Wearing my mentors old army BD jacket was an omen though for by seventeen and a half I had relinquished my apprenticeship and joined Airborne Forces. Six months later I was camped
on Hudson Bay at Fort Churchill in the January - wouldn't have found anything to beat that on the shipyard that's for sure
Apologies for the nostalgia trip - normal service will be resumed quite soon
Dew yu hev a gud week-en now
Ol - Tug