Mudeford Sailing Club

editorial, by mike roach

Many thanks to our contributors this time. William Lack has written an excellent few pages on the trials of a Round-the-Island skipper and the Commodore and Lesley Hotchin have some words to say on the recent Laser Masters event in Spain.

I mention elsewhere that I sailed a Laser across the other side of the world while you were completing the Spring Series.  We were guests on a tropical island where among other attractions there were 3 Lasers and a Nacra 16 catamaran, just on the beach, waiting to be sailed. I took out one of the Lasers, and nearly fell straight in: it was thick with sun-tan oil, the foot strap was not tightened at all, the outhaul was bar-tight, there was no cunningham and the kicker was one of the really old ones which need a shire horse to provide some traction to pull it on. And the rudder would not stay down.

However, after 30 minutes fiddling about I did have an hour or so in a perfect F3, planing gently across the Sumatran sea, gybing and tacking, popping upwind for a bit, then rushing down again, pausing only for a cool beer on the beach.

And I did think of you, honest I did.

Particular thanks are due to the team who carried out the first real re-fit of Vrouwe Johanna since her first journey here 12 years ago. There are far too many people to mention individually and of course there were two tasks going on at the same time: the securing of the hull itself against flooding and the bringing of the kitchen/galley area to the standard required by the local authority. Just to give you an idea of the work that goes on behind the scenes, Rowena spent most of her Tuesday evening  cleaning and sorting out the galley for the “inspection” the following morning.  Which it passed.  Thank you, all of you, for your hard work.

Mike

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