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Oulton Week

JennyMorgan

By JennyMorgan
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ChrisB

ChrisB

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5 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

Be warned, Oulton Week starts this weekend! Loads of boats, without engines!

P8232576.JPG

I hope that you will get out on the water Peter with your camera. I really enjoyed what you captured last year.

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

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5 hours ago, Polly said:

Warp tells me that they had 4m waves on the Fastnet, hopefully Oulton Broad won’t be that lumpy!

It was pretty rough this morning!

I was out shadowing the Fastnet aboard a Hurley 22 in 1979, that really was rough. Oulton Broad has never been like that!

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

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The Hurley 22 is an exceptional sea-boat for its size and being short drops into troughs quite readily rather than fighting the waves. The Cowes lifeboat lay alongside of us for ten minutes or so before departing with the comment 'you obviously know what you are doing'! It wasn't until a day or two later when we went ashore in the trots at  Cowes that we realised that a tragedy had occurred. Until then we had just regarded it as an exciting experience. There were people wandering around Cowes in an absolute daze. A cousin of mine had had a really rough time of it in a competitor boat.  We weren't racing thus were reefed and certainly weren't pushing it although we were still sailing to windward and didn't feel a need to heave-too , after all it was a sailing school boat and I was supposed to be teaching seamanship! 

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SPEEDTRIPLE

SPEEDTRIPLE

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9 hours ago, Polly said:

A 22 footer would be challenging to say the least. Especially that year. I was camping on the Welsh coast and  had never experienced a wind like it.

Go and have a Vindaloo from the Raj in Loddon, and make sure you`ve got a bath of iced water in the morning? :default_icon_eek:

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SPEEDTRIPLE

SPEEDTRIPLE

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1 hour ago, JennyMorgan said:

The Hurley 22 is an exceptional sea-boat for its size and being short drops into troughs quite readily rather than fighting the waves. The Cowes lifeboat lay alongside of us for ten minutes or so before departing with the comment 'you obviously know what you are doing'! It wasn't until a day or two later when we went ashore in the trots at  Cowes that we realised that a tragedy had occurred. Until then we had just regarded it as an exciting experience. There were people wandering around Cowes in an absolute daze. A cousin of mine had had a really rough time of it in a competitor boat.  We weren't racing thus were reefed and certainly weren't pushing it although we were still sailing to windward and didn't feel a need to heave-too , after all it was a sailing school boat and I was supposed to be teaching seamanship! 

I remember reading an article in one of the monthly yachting mags which reported that every soul that lost their lives came from boats that were still floating, albeit in a real mess, after the storm died down.  The age old saying is "never step DOWN into a liferaft, always CLIMB INTO it"  

They also reported that a surprising number of competitors were very inexperienced, something that was born out by the sheer number of people in liferafts while their boats were still afloat, again, the old saying applies.

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JennyMorgan

JennyMorgan

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1 hour ago, SPEEDTRIPLE said:

They also reported that a surprising number of competitors were very inexperienced, something that was born out by the sheer number of people in liferafts while their boats were still afloat, again, the old saying applies.

Some things never change. For example this week is, as I've said, is Oulton Week. One hugely expensive boat has lay at her moorings all summer, she will probably only race this week before being laid up for the winter. Her owner is on holiday. It was no different on the South Coast back in the 1970's. Cowes Week, Henley regatta, Ascot, all part of 'the season', social/sporting must attend events. I never ceased to be amazed at the lack of experience of some owners.  Nearer home watching the antics of some of the big boats coming through the Lock at Oulton Broad can be highly entertaining, if you can tolerate the scream of tortured bow thrusters and crunched gel!

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Polly

Polly

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Yes the safety aspects of the Fastnet are beefy now. Everyone has to have epirb on life jackets; all boats had to have AIS and VHF, all things that were not compulsory in 79. Also you have to qualify with hours day and night and perform well in qualifying races.

This year big winds were coming  in after most of the field had finished, it was a couple of old Westerly type boats still out there. Eventually they motored in all but one that managed to sail ahed of the gale. Dave thinks they probably sent a helicopter out to advise them to quit.

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