This all I can describe this video as. Still, there are some ideas for what we might do on Sarah G sometime.
Click Here
Now real news at the moment. Off the boat, we had a very nice anniversary weekend in Paris.
Tuesday 28 August 2012
Wednesday 22 August 2012
New Aquisition
Last week Sarah Giddings entered the world of 21st century navigation. I have always resisted having a chart plotter aboard and, given a choice, I would still prefer to use paper charts. However, the difficulty in acquiring large scale charts of the Moroccan coast has persuaded me of the need to get some sort of chart plotter.
I was leaning towards investing in a laptop and putting a suitable bit of software on it. I had even experimented with OpenCPN on our netbook. Then, Marco Nannini of the Global Ocean Race let it be known that he had a Garmin plotter to dispose of. A bit of discussion followed on Facebook and a deal was struck! We are now the proud owners of a GPSMap 720 and an SD card with the western Mediterranean on it. We then decided to jointly treat ourselves to a large map including the Canaries, Azores, Atlantic Iberia and most of the Bay of Biscay.
Thanks to Marco for that and we wish him luck with future plans.
I am determined that the days of drawing little triangles on large expensive bits of paper should not die out. Nor will laying off courses to allow for tidal set or even EPs. However, poor visibility and strange entrances where we do not have a detailed chart will no longer cause so much concern.
I will post photos once we have it installed on the chart table.
In other news, my Brother had a mad moment and bought a Yanmar 1GM10 off Ebay and now has to figure out how to shoehorn it under Kemara's cockpit. This is to say nothing of putting in a new sea cock for the cooling water intake, redriling the shaft hole in the trailing edge of the keel, moving the cockpit drain seacocks, installing a fuel tank, installing an exhaust and silencer to come out over the transom and finally, glassing in the outboard well!
I think it is actually a good idea and will make her a much more practicable boat. We should be able to get some ideas for when we have to face up to replacing our old Bukh diesel engine as well.
I was leaning towards investing in a laptop and putting a suitable bit of software on it. I had even experimented with OpenCPN on our netbook. Then, Marco Nannini of the Global Ocean Race let it be known that he had a Garmin plotter to dispose of. A bit of discussion followed on Facebook and a deal was struck! We are now the proud owners of a GPSMap 720 and an SD card with the western Mediterranean on it. We then decided to jointly treat ourselves to a large map including the Canaries, Azores, Atlantic Iberia and most of the Bay of Biscay.
Thanks to Marco for that and we wish him luck with future plans.
I am determined that the days of drawing little triangles on large expensive bits of paper should not die out. Nor will laying off courses to allow for tidal set or even EPs. However, poor visibility and strange entrances where we do not have a detailed chart will no longer cause so much concern.
I will post photos once we have it installed on the chart table.
In other news, my Brother had a mad moment and bought a Yanmar 1GM10 off Ebay and now has to figure out how to shoehorn it under Kemara's cockpit. This is to say nothing of putting in a new sea cock for the cooling water intake, redriling the shaft hole in the trailing edge of the keel, moving the cockpit drain seacocks, installing a fuel tank, installing an exhaust and silencer to come out over the transom and finally, glassing in the outboard well!
I think it is actually a good idea and will make her a much more practicable boat. We should be able to get some ideas for when we have to face up to replacing our old Bukh diesel engine as well.
Monday 13 August 2012
More Olympics and a different sort of cruising
A great weekend so far. The sailing was great fun in Weymouth and it was also good to be on the Breakwater rather than on the beach where you couldn’t see it. That said, it was a bit strange to have little idea of what was going on and having to phone Audrey at work to get a run down of what happened. Suffice to say, that the British men in the 470 got a brilliant silver and were thrilled about it. Meanwhile the Women also had a brilliant silver though it was tainted by the fact that they so nearly got gold and just made a wrong judgement call about which side of the course to go and fell foul of a wind shift.
Although I took some pictures, they all suffer from camera shake though like all amateurs, I am going to blame the equipment and claim that my long lens does not focus very well at full length. Here, however is a picture of the three person Elliot 6M match racing. The Spanish went on to take gold.
I had some more reflections on sailing and racing in particular. Unsurprisingly, I am of the view that we are better suited to cruising. If you get on the wrong side of a wind shift while cruising it is just an annoyance that forces you to put another tack in and perhaps miss closing time at the pub. While for a racer it makes all the difference in the world. We can get similar senses of achievement after making a successful passage. The buzz of arriving in Cascais last September was, for me, the equal of winning a regatta. I cannot imagine how it will feel when we do get across the Atlantic.
I am more and more wondering if we should look into cruising to Brazil for the 2016 games. I am not sure exactly how the timings would work. It would probably be necessary to head south in 2015 and get across the Atlantic at the normal time after the hurricane season ends. Then, you would need to head south and aim to get to Rio in the summer. I am not sure if there would then be time to get back north and heading home across the Atlantic in time. It would all depend on how far south the hurricane belt ran in the Autumn. To say nothing of what the winds do around there.
In more focussed plans, ours are still at the beck and call of employers. We will just have to wait and see. Chances are that our original date of 31 August is out for now. If, as I suspect, it is not till the end of September, that we get away, we will have to look at going down for just a weekend in September in order to get the wind generator installed as well as assure poor Sarah G that we haven’t forgotten her!
At least we would be able to get to visit the Southampton boat show! Small silver lining that.
On Saturday we visited my Sister and their new "dutch barge". It is a huge steel affair in which they intend to travel the canals of Europe and some coastal hopping in the Med. She is a beautiful boat and immaculately fitted out as well as being huge! I expect they will have a great time though sadly, the fact that we are now not looking to cruise the Med makes it less likely that we will meet up.
Although I took some pictures, they all suffer from camera shake though like all amateurs, I am going to blame the equipment and claim that my long lens does not focus very well at full length. Here, however is a picture of the three person Elliot 6M match racing. The Spanish went on to take gold.
I had some more reflections on sailing and racing in particular. Unsurprisingly, I am of the view that we are better suited to cruising. If you get on the wrong side of a wind shift while cruising it is just an annoyance that forces you to put another tack in and perhaps miss closing time at the pub. While for a racer it makes all the difference in the world. We can get similar senses of achievement after making a successful passage. The buzz of arriving in Cascais last September was, for me, the equal of winning a regatta. I cannot imagine how it will feel when we do get across the Atlantic.
I am more and more wondering if we should look into cruising to Brazil for the 2016 games. I am not sure exactly how the timings would work. It would probably be necessary to head south in 2015 and get across the Atlantic at the normal time after the hurricane season ends. Then, you would need to head south and aim to get to Rio in the summer. I am not sure if there would then be time to get back north and heading home across the Atlantic in time. It would all depend on how far south the hurricane belt ran in the Autumn. To say nothing of what the winds do around there.
In more focussed plans, ours are still at the beck and call of employers. We will just have to wait and see. Chances are that our original date of 31 August is out for now. If, as I suspect, it is not till the end of September, that we get away, we will have to look at going down for just a weekend in September in order to get the wind generator installed as well as assure poor Sarah G that we haven’t forgotten her!
At least we would be able to get to visit the Southampton boat show! Small silver lining that.
On Saturday we visited my Sister and their new "dutch barge". It is a huge steel affair in which they intend to travel the canals of Europe and some coastal hopping in the Med. She is a beautiful boat and immaculately fitted out as well as being huge! I expect they will have a great time though sadly, the fact that we are now not looking to cruise the Med makes it less likely that we will meet up.
Monday 6 August 2012
Visiting the Olympics at Weymouth
We took the plunge and drove down to Weymouth yesterday to watch the medal races for the Star and Finn with British favourites in both. As everyone will know, Andrew Simpson and Iain Percy were pipped for gold by the Swedish pair but Ben Ainslie managed to play a ruthlessly tactical race and beat the Dane Hogh-Christiansen and get his record breaking Gold medal. People are comparing his achievement with the greatest ever Olympic sailor Paul Elvestrom (another Dane). He is certainly the equal of Elvestrom and in pure medal terms has more than Elvestrom since he got a silver in Atlanta as well as the four golds. Though we must remember that Paul Elvestrom continued competing at the Olympics till 1988 when he entered the Tornado class with his daughter as crew.
As a teenager I went through a phase of wanting to go dinghy racing and harboured dreams of entering the Olympics myself. It was never to be. Not least since there was no interest in dinghy racing in the town where I grew up. Also, I doubt if I would have had the inclination or dedication to seek out that extra tenth of a knot that makes a crucial difference on the race course. My interests in sailing definitely move at a slower pace than is needed to win races. Hence, sailing a Rival rather than a First 30 or some such.
For a while, I found that quite saddening but then I thought back to the buzz from arriving in Cascais after a long fast sail down from Porto. There was also the last few miles from Tarifa to La Linea which brought last years cruise to an end and I fancy that there was a similar sense of achievement as winning a race.
Here is a picture of one of the races taking part after we had discovered that the breakwater at the harbour entrance is not a ticket only area.
So, no sudden change of tack and selling Sarah G to buy a 470! However, I am hoping to get back down to Weymouth to watch the final for the Women’s' 470 regatta. I am also starting to seriously dream about visiting
here in 2016!
Another highlight was finding The Boat Project on display in the harbour.
As a teenager I went through a phase of wanting to go dinghy racing and harboured dreams of entering the Olympics myself. It was never to be. Not least since there was no interest in dinghy racing in the town where I grew up. Also, I doubt if I would have had the inclination or dedication to seek out that extra tenth of a knot that makes a crucial difference on the race course. My interests in sailing definitely move at a slower pace than is needed to win races. Hence, sailing a Rival rather than a First 30 or some such.
For a while, I found that quite saddening but then I thought back to the buzz from arriving in Cascais after a long fast sail down from Porto. There was also the last few miles from Tarifa to La Linea which brought last years cruise to an end and I fancy that there was a similar sense of achievement as winning a race.
Here is a picture of one of the races taking part after we had discovered that the breakwater at the harbour entrance is not a ticket only area.
So, no sudden change of tack and selling Sarah G to buy a 470! However, I am hoping to get back down to Weymouth to watch the final for the Women’s' 470 regatta. I am also starting to seriously dream about visiting
here in 2016!
Another highlight was finding The Boat Project on display in the harbour.
Wednesday 1 August 2012
Reflections on the London Olympics
I know that this is really not about our adventures with Sarah G or our plans but it has been fascinating to watch the Olympic sailing events. When I was a teenager I wanted to get into dinghy racing but various things including a total lack of dinghy racing in my home town ruled it out. I was however a keen follower of Rodney Pattinson and had dreams of entering the Olympics Flying Dutchman
I had been very cynical about the London Olympics but have had to admit to having to eat humble pie on that. We did even have a go at getting tickets for Weymouth but the Locog ticketing system defeated us.
Now, it is even on television though as Ben Ainslie's chances seem to be fading for gold and Brits the BBCs traditional antipathy to sailing is reasserting itself and there is little coverage. The television coverage has also been a bit of a revalation. The boats must be carrying transponders as they are able to show the relative positions of the boat using computer animation.
Personally, I will be cheering for Saskia Clarke and Hannah Mills in the Womens 470 and Ian Percy and Andrew Simpson in the Star class.
The great Paul Elvestrǿm claimed accurately that the sailors were some of the toughest athletes in the olympics. They have to spend hours concentrating very hard and making numerous tactical decisions while at the same time using all their muscles to hold the boat in perfect trim for maximum speed.
I wish all the competitors well in Weymouth while acknowledging that I doubt I would ever have had the mental toughness to pursue racing at that level. Our gentle cruising is much more suited to my essentially lazy character!
I had been very cynical about the London Olympics but have had to admit to having to eat humble pie on that. We did even have a go at getting tickets for Weymouth but the Locog ticketing system defeated us.
Now, it is even on television though as Ben Ainslie's chances seem to be fading for gold and Brits the BBCs traditional antipathy to sailing is reasserting itself and there is little coverage. The television coverage has also been a bit of a revalation. The boats must be carrying transponders as they are able to show the relative positions of the boat using computer animation.
Personally, I will be cheering for Saskia Clarke and Hannah Mills in the Womens 470 and Ian Percy and Andrew Simpson in the Star class.
The great Paul Elvestrǿm claimed accurately that the sailors were some of the toughest athletes in the olympics. They have to spend hours concentrating very hard and making numerous tactical decisions while at the same time using all their muscles to hold the boat in perfect trim for maximum speed.
I wish all the competitors well in Weymouth while acknowledging that I doubt I would ever have had the mental toughness to pursue racing at that level. Our gentle cruising is much more suited to my essentially lazy character!
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