Several years ago the club I was sailing at was holding one of its annual events – a GP14 regatta. Someone at the club asked if I’d like to sail in it, as one of the other members had a GP14 but wasn’t going to be taking part, meaning I could helm the boat if I could find a crew. I jumped at the chance, even though I hadn’t really sailed a two-man boat for 15 years, and I had virtually no experience with a spinnaker.

As luck would have it, another club member overheard the conversation and offered to be my crew. This was both excellent news and terrible news. The guy in question had won a world championship as a crew in a two-man spinnaker boat. I was going to have an excellent team mate, but I was also going to have no excuses for doing badly. And I like having excuses. Continue reading →

All the way back during the last America’s Cup, I was watching the press conference after Day 1 of the Prada Cup Round Robins (which is a perfectly normal thing to do), and I was delighted to hear Ben Ainslie mention Continue reading →

Sailing is rarely on TV but, when it is, you’ll normally find me watching it. In part, this is to avoid doing other, more pressing and important things like spending time with my children as they grow up, or maintaining the house so that it doesn’t eventually collapse in a pile of rubble around us all. But these are not the only reasons I watch sailing – I do also actually like it.

This, of course, means that I am in a tiny minority of humankind. Even my son, who will watch pretty much any sport, can rarely be persuaded to sit and watch with me. And my wife and daughter? No chance.

There is good reason for this. Sailing is a Continue reading →

Earlier this week I posted a photo quiz, which I thought was tough, but was solved pretty quickly by Tillerman, with my brother filling in the nearly impossible final gaps.

I came across the photo because, with the Olympic Classes racing at Weymouth this week in the last World Cup meeting before Rio 2016, I was reminded that I needed to complete a job that I should have finished some time ago.

Last year I wrote some notes of on the Optimist Selection Trials of 1988, and I intended to follow up with notes on 1989. But I never did.

So I decided to get them done, and came cross the photo.

The photo I posted is on the left, and the Europeans team is on the right.

Continue reading →

I was looking for some info last week and I came across this photo (apologies for the quality), and I wondered if any of my readers would be able to figure out who any of the guys in the photo are. So…

1. Can you name any of these happy young chaps?
2. Do you know where the photo was taken?
3. Or when it was taken?
4. Why is it relevant this coming week (from Wednesday onwards)?
5. Why might it have been even more relevant on May 7th and 8th?
6. Who was the handsomest guy sailing at the regatta?

This post was originally published on 5th June 2016

In my last post I linked to a video of the Optimist Selection Trials for the Worlds and Europeans teams, held at Weymouth in 1988. I have to admit it doesn’t make the most compelling viewing if you weren’t there or don’t know any of the participants.

In fact, it isn’t that thrilling even if you were there and knew the participants. Nevertheless, in the spirit of Throwback Thursday, I thought I’d mention a few things about it that some might find interesting. Continue reading →

There is something about a good leeward mark rounding that I find incredibly satisfying. I suppose we all have these strange things about us, and now you know mine. I guess there are worse things I could be obsessed with. Continue reading →

There are a couple of things I like to remember before I go sailing.

The first is to remember a dry towel. I’m about 95% successful at this, which makes me sound like a towel-remembering genius. But let me tell you, the 5% of the time I forget can be pretty costly.

I almost always remember to pack one of these

The other thing I always think about before I go sailing is this: Continue reading →

A while back I took part in my first Frostbite event after getting back into sailing. It’s always hard to know what is going to count as a good result when you’re racing against people that you’ve never sailed with before, but out of a fleet of 30+ I was hoping to be somewhere around the top 10.

For the day of the first races it was blowing a solid force 4, with a decent if not huge swell. I love sailing in these conditions, but I get better results in lighter breezes. So when I rounded the windward mark in seventh I was pretty happy, and when I gained a spot on the downwind I was even happier. Sixth place and gaining – this frostbiting thing was easy. Continue reading →