paul reed

This conversion of the RS600 single handed dingy into a “flying boat” looks crazy. I wonder how difficult it is to drive …

The Notice of Race was released today for the 60th sailing of the Sydney Hobart this coming December; one of the Three Great Ocean Races. All I need to do now is work out how to get a ride!

Next year is a Fastnet year, so perhaps I could try to do the triple: I must surely be able to get on a Newport-Bermuda boat.

While we’re on lists:

• The Fastnet 608 miles from Cowes on the Isle of Wight to Plymouth, England, via the Fastnet Rock off the southern tip of Ireland.

• Newport Bemuda The course is simple: the rhumbline from Newport to Bermuda, approximately 162 degrees magnetic and a distance of 635 nautical miles.
• Sydney Hobart 630 nautical miles from Sydney, Australia, down the east coast, across the Bass Straight to Tasmania, round Tasman Island and up the Derwent River.

Once again, 0 down, 3 to go…

This weekend is the official start of Summer — Memorial Day Weekend. However due to deadlines, today isn’t a holiday for me. Saturday and Sunday, however, were spent sailing on Chariad. After several hours tinkering and doing last minute jobs on Saturday we did the delivery run from her winter home in Winthrop up to her summer home in Marblehead at the Boston Yacht Club. Mostly this was motoring, but we did get the sails up for the last bit once we were out of the Boston Harbor Channel.

On Sunday we raced, although we were 2 crew short and everyone had lots of winter cobwebs from the months off. We came second across the line by less than 1/2 a boat length, but a disappointing fourth on corrected time. Then again, for the first race of the year, this isn’t that bad a performance (most of the other boats had raced on Saturday also).

Roll on the rest of the season: I’m really looking forward to “big boat” sailing again.