Warning Motorboat Owners / Hirers Aug 2016

[Timbo]

I'm unsure whether to put this post here...or in the BOG section...but

I've always wanted to learn to sail, not just sail but take part in a regatta but...for the life of me I can't work out whats going on. I've sat and watched the Horning Regatta with Uncle Albert (RN sailing champion so he tells me...yeah right) and was still non the wiser. At one regatta, can't remember where, I thought I'd sussed it! All these 'dingies' (as in dark and dingy...family malaprop) flapped about in front of the quay, while their crews shouted and screamed at each other, in what seemed a desperate attempt to escape from something. Then a bloke came out of the clubhouse on the quay with a little cannon...and shot at them! No wonder they were in such a rush to get away! Uncle Albert told me it meant the race was over. It certainly was for the poor bugger hit by the cannon ball!

I am however in training in the event my sailing ambitions come true or I ever get caught in the middle of a regatta with Royal Tudor. Three or four times a week I venture down to Tesco and try to get my car in and out of the car park without running over one of the trolley pushing maniacs intent on walking behind my car. Just to spice things up a bit I sometimes drive into town to test my reflexes against jaywalkers and pram danglers.

Of course should I realise my sailing ambitions and enter the Horning Regatta I will of course win, as I fully intend opening fire on the feller with the cannon before he manages to get a shot off. Besides which I have been practising my 'boarding techniques' at the dinner table by grasping a steak knife between my teeth while I wait for lunch. If nothing else this has seriously impressed my Mrs who only the other day told me I was 'special'.

 

[oceandawn]

Hi

I don't have an opinion either way on this  subject and we are pretty inexperienced compared to  many members in regards to the rules off the waterway. However, it has always confused me why yachts sailing under power do not use the same rules as power boats. i.e staying to the right of he river . Could some one explain the rules to me please?

[Vaughan]

A yacht under power with the sails up is "motor-sailing" and is a power boat, within the rules.

[Wussername]

Why can't we have motor cruiser races? That would be good.

We could have one at Horning during the tea break.

[Vaughan]

There used to be speedboat races at Barton regatta. It was actually more of a competition for boatyard towboats, so you can imagine the wash. It all stopped after Ian Mackintosh bought an Albatross one year, and lapped everyone about 4 times. We all reckoned he was cheating!

[TheQ]

Sailing boats under power Should follow Motorboat rules, do however be aware their engine may be running and not in gear, to either be ready to replace sail power , or to charge the batteries on board.

 Sometimes I have known of those sailing having the engine in gear just to provide an extra little bit of push in light conditions which is a bit naughty...

Timbo I like your post a lot  but I'm not sure If you are interested in understanding whats happening or do and make a good story...

You could visit a local sailing club and I'm sure someone could explain it for you.  I used to Visit North Hykeham club when working up there, behind the houses on the right on the Newark road from Lincoln. very friendly.

 Or if you are down here, I'm sure someone at HSC ( or any Sailing club) would help,  Don't visit and just stand / sit there, ask for someone like the Commodore and they'll find someone to help you. We have had visitors who come down and then just stand / sit around, not trying to speak to anyone, with over 400 members, many will assume you are just another member and carry on with what they are doing. 

HSC as a self help club with no paid staff our tea and coffee is cheap!! which is good, I might buy you one.

  If you are down here down this Regatta week, I could take you out on the rescue boat and explain what going on, in between asking the Non competitors to keep right.

Here is a thought for you.

 Motorboaters find it difficult getting through the fleet, Think what it is like If you are a sailor from the open Seas or a big lake coming down on your first holiday on the broads, on one of the Hunters craft and sail round the corner into maximum madness. No engine and used to sailing yards apart...

[TheQ]

17 minutes ago, Wussername said:

Why can't we have motor cruiser races? That would be good.

We could have one at Horning during the tea break.

Horning Sailing club has had Motor cruiser races, but not involving speed for obvious reasons.

 Up on Black Horse Broad, they are tests of your manouvering abilty, but heavy on the social side of the event. Sadly I've never joined in this one as I've not kept the engine working long enough

[smellyloo]

Perhaps one reason that the divide between stinkies & raggies seems to be growing is that the modern stinkie, with all the comforts of home, is becoming less like a boat and more like a luxurious camper van.

So no longer does the stinkie voyager have to endure the cramped sleeping shelves, bucketit & chuckit, and frying brekkie over a one burner primus whilst trying to ignore the pervading odours from the great un-washed crew,

So whilst captaining you great white comfortable caravan spare a thought for the poor, smellie raggie trying to round an arcward river bend with unfavourable tides & wind. They may have been there for some time and by some fluke of nature about to conquer that bend ..... when along comes a stinkie full of waving well wishes, plonked exactly where you need to put in the last tack to send you proudly round the bend, With a defeated wave back to the stinkie crowd you slowly drift back to where you came from ready to mount another attack on that dreaded bend!!

Being a less than accomplished raggie lover I have spent many happy hours going round the bend ..... yes I could have added motor assist ..... but that would be like cheating in a game of patiance.

 

[Timbo]

53 minutes ago, TheQ said:

 

Timbo I like your post a lot  but I'm not sure If you are interested in understanding whats happening or do and make a good story...

 

Oh there's nothing in life as pleasant as a good yarn with friends...however

I'm serious about the sailing. I did check out the 'sailing for disabled' a while back at North Hykeham. I have quite a few build your own sailing dinghy plans favorited on my browser...steady Doug I can picture you banging your head against the wall shouting 'no no get your cruiser finished and back in the water first you muppet'.

Once RT is back in the water I will be needing a dinghy of some sort so it might as well be a sailing dinghy.

[TheQ]

Timbo, I assume you've take RT back home for access to work on her, otherwise I'd recommend Horning sailing club sailing school, there are keel boats as well as dinghies to learn on and it's not all children.

 I note you are a retired archaeologist, something I wanted to be many years ago, but life took me another way ( well my parents did, to the Outer Hebridies....) Used to help on the excavations at Ludgershall castle in the school summer holidays.. (up to 1971)

[Mowjo]

Smellyloo! Imagine twenty years down the line when all our little 25 to 30ft stinkies have gone to that boatyard in the sky, the Broads will be full of 45ft ex Richo's boats there won't be any room for raggies or anything else on the Broads,

Now a question one of you raggies might be able to answer for me! I'm based on the Ant so travel it a lot, one thing thats always puzzled me is why do raggies try to sail it, it's narrow with trees both side at best there's a very very light breeze on it, yet everytime I'm out I see raggies tacking every five feet going nowhere with the sails just flapping,  I realise that not all of them have engines but even ones with them do it, I once moored at Irstead Staith and watched one of CB's raggies take twenty minutes to go past he must have tacked 30 times and he had his engine running but not in gear, what am I missing here? because if it was me I'd be under engine untill I reached Barton or the main river,

 

[johnm]

Mojo,

We all partake in sport for a challenge! Why would anyone climb Everest, go white water rafting or even 18 holes of golf?

I've sailed all over the world and been more challenged in some places than others by weather, tides and beer but one of the greatest technical sailing challenges I have completed was to sail a Hunter Lullaby up the Ant in light winds. There was no great reason to do it other than the sheer personal enjoyment and sense of achievement.

Please note that it was done mid-week, out of the main season and that no  were harmed in the achievement of this feat 

[johnm]

BTW - thread drift or what?!!

[riyadhcrew]

Maybe he was practicing tacking or trying to find out how the boat was best handled. Bit slow for me though.

[TheQ]

18 minutes ago, johnm said:

BTW - thread drift or what?!!

Well We (at the moment) are talking about sailing in drifting conditions....

[Mowjo]

Johnm! find me any thread on this site thats stays on topic! you should know by now it never happens here, and when I'm around I'm one of the worste offenders,,

I'm not knocking it! it just puzzles me why? I'm a stinky and 4mph is fast for me but twenty minutes to go something like 50yrds even the ducks were overtaking them, I probably could have turned my engine off and drifted past them at their speed, Nah! i just wondered if there was a reason for them doing it, next time I see it I'll ask,

Just to get back on topic I looked at the thread somewhere else that Q mentioned, not only was he shot down, but cut to pieces and blown up as well, so a lot of thanks for trying to help people,,

[BroadScot]

3 minutes ago, Mowjo said:

Just to get back on topic I looked at the thread somewhere else that Q mentioned, not only was he shot down, but cut to pieces and blown up as well, so a lot of thanks for trying to help people,,

Frank, how dare you go back on topic  Norty boy    Still laughing at your ducks remark !

Iain

[Mowjo]

Iain! for once I'm not acually sure I went off topic as it was still about raggies, I think I'm out of practice,,,

[Timbo]

There's a reason the Ant is so narrow...and it involves a saily...and I saw it happen. What happened was...I was pootling down the Ant through Irstead on the way for a pump out at the bridge and possibly a pump in at the Dog...when I spies a saily type coming upstream, tacking every three yards but at the end of each turn he ran straight into the bank and then took several minutes to extricate himself from trees, bushes, reeds...other boats etc. Tack, wham, bank...faff. Tack, wham, bank...faff. The problem was there was no way of getting round him as you never knew when he was going to manouver and he didn't give any indication...and the tacks he was taking were so small you couldn't get a boat length past him before he'd ram into the opposite bank again.

After three quarters of an hour of this I was slowly backing up towards Barton Broad. I had tried to hail the saily several times but no reply. Eventually I addressed him formally... making reference to a male chicken and Elisabeth Beresford's literary characters of SW19. Finally he stopped faffing about long enough to let me pass. However it was not to be full steam ahead because Orinoco had been trailing a rope which now stretched from bank to bank. Never mind tacking, he'd stitched the Ant together...quite literally.

The Hebrides is somewhere I've always wanted to visit Q. Royal Tudor is in Norfolk...as will I be on Saturday!

[TheQ]

I've a feeling the Saily going, Tack, wham, bank...faff. Tack, wham, bank...faff. must have been one of those visitors who are used to sailing in open sea I was talking about earlier!!!

Mowjo, Thank you for your comments

Trips to the Hebridies, a very beautiful place, the sailing is good and not as crowded but a lot less forgiving if you make a mistake.

The fishing both sea and Loch is fabulous, the fish queue up to jump on. But Woe betide you if you fish In the wrong loch without permission, The Ghillie can and has been known to confiscate your car as part of your illegal fishing equipment!! While I was up there the first time 1971-75 a soldier had a lot of explaining to do when an army Landrover got impounded!!!

You need all the time,

clothing for rain, sun, hail and snow because it changes so rapidly.

But most especially you need

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Avon-Original-Spray-Jojoba-Citronellol/dp/B00LSZ1PEQ/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1467828861&sr=8-1&keywords=amazon+skin+so+soft

The only known thing to stop the midges biting the moment it's not raining snowing or hailing...

[Maxwellian]

Agree re the skin so soft for mozzies. Works a treat.

[Mowjo]

Timbo! you may be onto something, because I remember the Ant seemed quite a bit wider back in the 80's,

As for Mozzies I discovered the other day via a TV program I stink, they were doing a thing on the best repellant and mentioned that some people (ME) never or very rarely get bitten, can't remember exactly but I think it was something to do with fairy moans, the wife must have gnome moans because everthing within a hundred miles searches her out and bites her, at least if I get her some Avon stuff she'll smell nicer than Deet,

[BroadScot]

1 hour ago, TheQ said:

The only known thing to stop the midges biting the moment it's not raining snowing or hailing...

How true !!! The Loch Rannoch midge is the most vicious on the mainland I have sampled. The Isle of Mull midge, are the worst ever I have cone across.

Iain

[JanetAnne]

11 hours ago, Vaughan said:

There used to be speedboat races at Barton regatta. It was actually more of a competition for boatyard towboats, so you can imagine the wash. It all stopped after Ian Mackintosh bought an Albatross one year, and lapped everyone about 4 times. We all reckoned he was cheating!

I've got one of those... and a (shhh) Delta

[JennyMorgan]

12 hours ago, Vaughan said:

There used to be speedboat races at Barton regatta. It was actually more of a competition for boatyard towboats, so you can imagine the wash. It all stopped after Ian Mackintosh bought an Albatross one year, and lapped everyone about 4 times. We all reckoned he was cheating!

Then there was that Sabberton bloke:-

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/wroxham_man_s_speed_record_is_on_course_after_30_years_of_oulton_broad_powerboat_racing_1_1477720