Caution Water Blog
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At the end of May, the whit bank holiday, Caution Water will be taking a trip up to Bala in Wales again.
Last years trip was filled with thrills and spills, blasting around in our Laser 2, and a couple of insanely fast and incredibly fun joy rides on a Prindle 15 catamaran (until it, and the helms rib, broke). It was stupidly windy (Force 6-7 all weekend), with amazingly few capsizes all weekend.
This year we're doing it again! However, it promises to be even more fun than before... different campsite, some different people, and a different boat...
Our friend with the Prindle 15 is selling it, and has upgraded to a Prindle 19. We came across this monster a few weeks ago, when a guy I work with tipped me off that it was being sold... we went along to take a look, not knowing what to expect. I was hoping for a Dart 18, as they're (apparently) a good introduction to cat racing, and instead we foung this high performance beast. Too much for me, but someone else was interested...
This looks like it might be fun!
As you can see from the photo, it pretty much dwarfs Becky, and this is the closest she'll ever get to going on it (her words, not mine, but we'll see about that). Twin trapeze, in a breeze, this thing should really fly. We're going up to Bala on Saturday to rig it up... hopefully more photos soon! 19ft long, the predecessor of the more modern Inter Nacra F18's and upwards, this should go like the clappers!
On a final note, any regular readers would be more than welcome to come along, camp, bring your boat if you wish, May 22nd - 25th, Roberts campsite (the campsite half way down the other side of the lake, just past the sailing club, along with the catamaran club). Very nice little campsite, much more scenic than Pugh's down the bottom, not as many facilities but nicer and cleaner, and much nicer people running it. Plus they let you have small campfires on the beach of a night, which is just fantastic with a group of friends!
I just hope the dreaded "hoolie" doesn't reappear, otherwise there will be a large splash as I unhook from the trapeze and swim to shore...
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Trimpley Sailing Club are holding a Taste of Sailing introductory course in April, and are looking for interested people.
Max from Trimpley had this to say:
The dates for the Taste Of Sailing course are:
SUNDAY 19TH APRIL
SUNDAY 26TH APRIL
SUNDAY 3RD MAY
SUNDAY 10TH MAY
It consists of a four week course, two hours, every Sunday. I ask the Junior group to be at the club between 9.30 am - 10.00 am. In this time we rig boats, have a chat about what we are hoping to achieve in the two hours, then have a safety briefing. - I will email out a newsletter a few weeks before the TOS with all the appropriate information.
Prices are being decided at the moment as we have changed them due to the credit crunch, they will be a long the line of: £20.00 for adults for all four weeks, and £10.00 for Juniors for all four weeks - again I will confirm this in the email I will send out.
We are on the water sailing for 10.30 am on the dot! Some of the adult sailors like to get a feel for the boat on land but I feel you learn better when actually sailing. On the first week we will start off with some paddling races in boats with no sails, this helps build the confidence of the youngsters before actually being 'under sail'. While doing the paddling races I can see who is more confident than others, so that I can pair the less confident sailors up with an experienced Junior sailor from the club for when sailing.
We then go on to basic sailing skills, sailing a simple course, tacking, gybing (these are two of the ways of turning the boat) but mainly having fun. During the four week course we will play loads of games and fun activities.
When I see that there confidence is growing they will have a chance to have a go on their own, but only if they want to, - everything is totally up to them!
On the fourth week we will have some races, (a chance to win some chocolate!) and loads more fun and games. Sailors will then have a chance to take part in a capsize drill. This consists of each individual sailor, capsizing a Topper whilst under supervision by myself from the speedboat, and a confident Junior sailor who will be on the boat with them. Please Note that this is optional, if they don't want to take part, they don't have to, they are allowed to watch from the speed boat with me.
Each session ends at 12.00 noon due to club racing starting at 12.15 pm. During the de-brief of each session I will assess what we have done, what they want to do next week and anything that we need to improve on. - Please note that sailors must help us put the boats away at the end of each session.
On the final week sailors will then be presented with a certificate. The certificate will contain some pictures of them sailing during the four weeks.
To get yourself booked on this course, or for more information please contact TSC's Junior Representative, and Junior Trainer, Max by email at: juniors@trimpleysailingclub.co.uk
So, if you are interested in starting sailing, get in touch and see if they have any places left!
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We visited the London Boat Show two weeks ago, the second time we've been - here's what we thought of it.
We were excited to go to the London Boat Show again - last year it was only the second show we'd been to, the first being Southampton, and we were excited to see more dinghies, and a bigger show, and were looking forward to it again.
Unfortunately leaving a little later as someone refused to wake up... we got there around 11 with a friend of ours, Mike, and his daughter (there's nothing like taking an enthusiastic 8yr old to a boat show, the pull power is better than caffeine!), parked up and made our way inside.
First we skirted around the large power boat hall, as last year we did this last and didn't have the energy or enthusiasm to do it. As these kind of things aren't our thing (or anywhere near our price range) we only spent 10 minutes or so in here marvelling at the size of some of the boats, and the fact that some boats had baby boats inside them... Then we moved onto the other hall.
The dinghy section this year was not fantastic it had to be said - there were good stands from Topper, Laser, Hartley Laminates (Wayfarer, Wanderer and Gull) and a wonderful display of RS boats, but that was about as far as things went.
Unfortunately with very little in the way of new kit on offer, the Laser stand was pretty similar to the last couple of shows with the standard Laser, Vago, 2000, Bahia, SB3, Dart 16 etc... the Topper stand with most of their range (I have to admit I was rather drawn to the 14C and 16C cats for a good 15 minutes while the others disappeared). I also spent a good amount of time hovering around the RS stand hoping the nice gentleman would take the hint and donate Caution Water an RS400 or RS500, but sadly, no...
Sadly, there was no outdoor racing on this time around (that was the week later, on the final Saturday of the show), and the entertainment indoors did not match up to expectations - last year a fair amount of floor space was given over to Deck games for adults and kids with all kinds of winch and pulley games, rowing machines, spot the difference between boats and so on - this year it was replaced by two sizeable indoor pools for miniature sail boats and try-kayaking for kids, with a small range of deck games behind, and no kids sail simulator to be seen anywhere - pretty disappointing, and not much to keep the kids happy!
The only other game of note was "brush boarding" - basically people jumping on disappointingly banged up surfboards on rolling brushes, which looked like good fun, but was too busy to get on. We were hoping there was a kite simulator again like last year, but sadly not.
We also found the chandlery side of things disappointing - there didn't appear to be as many stores as last year, I guess the "credit crunch" is taking effect. Speed Sails didn't make an appearance, obviously Purple Marine were not in attendance after going out of business last year, neither there were Baseline Marine and a number of other chandleries - the only one notable that was there was Jimmy Green Marine. The Rooster stand was also pretty disappointing, only selling clothing and no sailing kit - I guess we'll have to wait until the Dinghy show in March. The only bargains we picked up were a few lengths of rope and bungee cord for some good prices. There were however, plenty of clothing stores in attendance, although none seeming to offer very good deals.
Also interesting to see was a salesman for Snipe trailers spend the best part of 15 minutes talking to Mike about their range of dinghy trailers, practically down to even measurements of the trailers hoping for a sale, when all the time the info was being stored in preparation for a certain someone's company to start making their own trailers... good one, we'll have one of the first off the line!
In summary, the unfortunate truth is we did not enjoy the show as much as we thought we would - the bad economy seeming to hit the dinghy segment of the show and not touch the yachty-parts. We were wearing Caution Water merchandise, yet no-one seemed to notice (again, mostly yachty types), although we did manage to slip a CW card into a clipboard lying around on the Rooster site, but no offers of sponsorship have come through the door yet sadly!
If you went to the show, jump onto the forum - we'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if you disagree with us - until then, we'll look forward to the Dinghy Show in March (plus a boat jumble before then in February in Malvern).
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