Hello everyone,
Jilly and I are off on a little jaunt - sailing a boat called 'Merlin' down to the Med with Mr Micheal and Tass Greenhalgh.
When I get back - in 2 weeks - I will be catching up with the magazine!
So get all those ideas on paper (or computor), words and photos please by email or on disc if there are to many megabytes - don't scale them down.
I have some good stuff already - and more promised - so be part of it - we need your inspiration, or maybe just your 'take' on how the season was for you and/or the class.
Looking forward to opening my 'inbox' when I get back,
Pat

That wouldn't by any chance be the "Merlin" that was the only yacht that strayed on our course and blocked our wind at Netley three weeks ago?

Pat,

Surely not - another Merlin sailor wouldn't do that (unless of course he was trying to get a better view of the activites). As PRO for the event I did try and track down the people behind the offending 'Merlin' - would you believe it is under the name of the Dame Ellen McArthur Trust. High profile the owners may be, but that does NOT excuse their behaviour on the day. To sail straight into a dinghy fleet in the way they did, suggests a certain lack of understanding, if not plain ignorance.

My views were, i think, umm...'expressed to them', all in percussive middle english!!
Dougal

In 1976 I was doing the Lark Nationals at Paignton. The Queen was on her 'jubilee' trip around the British Isles. On this particular day she/Brittania arrived in Torbay, accompanied by sundry warships, and sailed right through the fleet of 100 or so dinghies. On TV that night the newsreader said "Look at all those little dinghies that have gone out to welcome the Queen". The language among those 'little dinghies' can be imagined. Bad manners are not the sole preserve of well known round-the-world sailors.

Nick

Wasn't "Jubilee" in 1997?

Silver Jubilee (25 years.)was in 1977. One must point out that Brittania and her guard ships were not exactly as manouverable, THe Championship Organisers would have known they were coming and given the expected courses they could easily have laid a course away from it.

I guess it is good as well to remember that when you lay the course, all the more so in a busy area like Southampton Water on a peak summer Sunday, that we're the ones actualy causing the obstruction. Most yotters - and stink boat driver too for that matter, respect the fact that an event is taking place and avoid the area. But, with 3 clubs in under 2 miles of shoreline, congestion does occur.

In this case (there were actually 2 incidents, different boats) both the helms must have had cloth ears, skins like Rhinos and have been totally oblivious to their surroundings. It happens........

D

And along with their thick skins they could draw upto 12 feet depending on length so may be almost as unmanoverable as the Grey Funnel line, we all need to keep a look out and stuff like this goes with the territory.

Having regularly (in a previous life) driven a stinkboat back into Christchurch's narrow channel on a Sunday evening and falling tide with lasers and toppers dodging across you believing steam can give way to sail - impossible unles you can stop dead instantly - I do understand. Just couldn't resist the jibe!

Oh and must add that David set the courses so we were well outside the channel at that stage.

watch out for milners plank and make sure you go to the scillys

Just none of you headers for Holy Loch try claiming a right of way on a Trident Boat!