• About Us and About the Website
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About Us and The Website

The Sailing

My grandfather was a keen dinghy sailor, and my mum was a very good crew in her youth. My dad took up sailing in his thirties, and then my siblings and I sailed from a young age, mostly in Optimists and Toppers. I sailed in numerous Open Meetings (or Regattas), National Championships and Selection trials, and I also was a member of the Optimist National Squad in the UK, where I got to race and train alongside many of the Olympic Medallists that emerged in the 1990s and 2000s.I graduated to Toppers, Lasers and Enterprises, until my late teens. Then I discovered that

1. Club membership was more fun when my parents were responsible for organising and paying for it.
2. Girls were interesting, and often not interested in guys in wetsuits (or, at least, this guy in a wetsuit).
3. Beer was cheaper than club membership

So I drifted out of sailing for a while before returning around age 30 when I was married and had a good job and didn’t have to worry so much about points 2) and 3).

I am a successful club sailor and decent circuit sailor:

• I have been club champion at both clubs I’ve been a member of, and won numerous club events
• I’ve also won regattas and placed well at large national events, including national championships.
• I am considered the handsomest man at nearly all sailing events I have attended.

(The last point is more an assumption than a proven fact, but I am confident it is true.)

The Writing

My writing is very like Shakespeare’s.

Or rather, it is often described in a similar manner to the way Shakespeare’s writing is talked about by kids in school – it largely seems like gibberish, and is often incredibly boring.

The technical stuff

I’m lucky that my dad is a technical whizz when it comes to computer stuff. I’d love to write something amusing about him because it’s fun to poke fun at your parents, but on this stuff I can’t legitimately do it.

He proved his sharp understanding of all things technical when he sat me down and said “Damian, you are going to need to use WordPress or something similar because there is no way in hell that you will be able to make your own website from scratch. And I’m not going to do it for you.”

I also did a beginner’s course on web design, which has allowed me to do the bizarre and half-cocked things that you can see as you browse through the site. I like to think these quirks are endearing and charming.

Essentially what I am saying is that any of the good technical stuff on the site is down to him; any of the rubbish technical stuff is down to me.