Son of the Farrther

 

Yesterday I had to cancel the 3.7 Test Sail Day due to low / no wind and test sailor drop out.

And so today I thought... 'It's a great day to see how my 15 year old son takes to the 3.7'.

Luke's just turned 15. He's 45kg ( weighed him on the scales tonight ) and 5'5". He hasn't sailed for 2 years. As he's taken every opportunity to chase girls or skate his local skate park recently. But before this he club raced a Mirror with me crewing for him. And before that did the Optimist thing from the age of about 7. Taking his 30 year old Optimist '2060' to a Silver fleet WIN and some fairly consistent top 5 Silver fleet open meeting places.

So he's no superstar squad sailor but represents an average 15 year old club sailor. So a great test pilot!

So how did his sail in the 3.7 go? Well I'll put it like this... 'Luke now wants to sail again after a 2 year layoff'. In fact he said, 'Dad, I want to start sailing every Sunday now, this boat is really dialed'. I think that sum's up what I saw in the 3.7. A great boat that enables kids and light weight adults to sail an exciting but well mannered trapeze helm boat.

Luke sailed the boat for roughly 2.5 > 3hrs with a combination of trapezing and hiking in wind that was around the 6 >10knts range. With no capsizes and most importantly a massive grin on his face!

I took the 3.7 for a spin after Luke came back in and at 75kg ( I must start running! :-( ) managed a few trips out on the wire as well. Not as sustained as Luke but considering the wind strength dam good fun.

Thanks 3.7 for a great day.

 Apologies for the bad quality. I didn't have a long lens with me, but I felt it was important to show Luke fully trapezing.

Up the Ally Pally

What a fantastic show! The interest in the 3.7 was truly astonishing. So much so that I for one almost lost my voice from the amount of talking I did. Even James, Marketing Director of Spinlock commented on the fact that 'he was sorry he hadn't been able to chat all weekend, but he never got an opportunity! Every time I looked around you were talking to somebody! And we were!  So a special thanks from the UK 3.7 Class to Spinlock for providing us with the stand space. We couldn't have done it without you.

So what's the up shot of the show? Well it looks like there the will be at least 5 possibly 6 - 3.7's being built by home builders so far. We also had a lot of interest from professional boat builders, fitting, spar and sailmakers and suppliers. And we will be following these contacts up in the next few weeks with the aim of smoothing the supply chain for home builders and those interested in having a pro boat built. 

The test sail day sign up was good also. With our limit of people being reached. The class will be in touch shortly to confirm emails and telephone numbers soon just in case we need to suspend the day due to weather etc…

All in all a great weekend.

There is just one last thing to say. A big thank you to Piers and Dave for helping out on the stand and chatting through with people why you have decided to build this great little boat.

Stand to attention

Just in case you didn't know my boats going to be on the Spinlock stand (NoB52) at the RYA Dinghy Show. So it now has some new gear and graphics... see you there.

Splash dash

Jam' in

New Spinlock cleats are now on. This was a little more of a protracted operation than I thought. Requiring the removal of the carbon cleat tower. This was both stuck to the deck with silicon as well as screwed down. Not normal screws either. A type is screw I haven't seen before, or indeed have a screw driver bit to fit! The screws have a square hole in the middle. And after some research these are called 'Robertson' and seem to be very common place in Canada. After having found a couple of screw bits from the back of a friends car! I can tell you that they are a pleasure to use. Much more positive than 'slot' or 'Philips' drives.

Anyway I digress. I then had to use a plate knife to remove the cleat tower from the deck by slicing through the silicon between the deck and tower. With this done I could replace the cleats. This was simple as the Spinlocks have the same hole centres as the Harken cam cleats I was replacing. I think I may need some wedges under them. But I'll sail the boat first before deciding. I then tidy up the boat for the dinghy show. Repairing a puncture hole made by a test sailer dropping the sharp edge of the daggerboard into the deck. Not a problem though and easy enough to fix.

Cradle rocks!

Finished the cradle for the dinghy show today. Yippee!

Hail Mary...

Here's 20 odd min's of footage from the recent 'Bloody Mary' Pursuit race. With Piers Hugh Smith at the wheel. I have pretty much left the footage as is, apart from taking out a rather long downwind section. (Which was the real race position killer on the day.) To let everyone see a real time race, with a reasonable amount of manoeuvre's and how the boat handles in a real situation... gusts, lulls, chop etc... At the end I believe Piers 'bailed out' to avoid a capsized boat on the mark.