Nothing Exciting
Yesterday I went to the club. Steve was there, so I thought I could go and I took out the other new (second-hand) club Laser for a sail. This one is a 144xxx number. That puts it somewhere in 1991. It’s in a quite good condition for a 15 year old boat. It has a repair at the bow and at the gunwale at the point that is hung from the trolley. It also has a hatch on the starboard side by the daggerboard box. We looked thought the hatch but we couldn’t see signs of a repair. We even tried to feel with our hands if there is some repair, but we didn’t manage to fins anything. This lead to only one conclusion. A previous owner put that hatch there for storage. Whoever makes a hole in a perfectly watertight hull doesn’t know what he is doing.
Anyway, there was bit of water in the hull after we emptied it completely, we left the hatch and transom bung open so it would dry. It didn’t dry completely, so I decided not to sail it more. I left the boat uncovered with the hatch open so it would dry overnight.
This morning I checked the hull and it was completely dry. The weather was not that great. Light wind, with gusts and shifts. I rigged the boat and went out for the first race. The whole sequence was quite strange because the Merlin Rockets didn’t really start on their gun. So for some reason I thought that their gun was our 6 minute gun but it was our 3 minute gun. That really messed the while start.
Anyway, I was third from the end until the boom swung and pulled my bandana of my head. The bandana took my sunglasses and they ended up in the water. They are supposed to be floatable, but they are not. I turned back to get them but I couldn’t see them anywhere. I stayed in that area and sailed around for a while but I couldn’t find them. It’s a shame because they cost me something like £35 about a month ago. That was the end of the race for me.
On the second race, I was racing with another boat. It was only a 10-year old boy but he has more sailing experience than I do. If I won’t get any better soon, he will be embarrassing me for the rest of my sailing career. Anyway I finished second or third from last. I took the boat in and checked it for water. When I took the bung out it seemed dry. When I opened the hatch, I could see that it was a bit dump. I could even see where the water had ran from, it was the gunwale. The gelcoat at the gunwale repair has started chipping off. I think this is where the water comes from. It’s OK because it’s not too much water, so we only need to make sure that it doesn’t get any worse.
In the afternoon, after racing, since there was hardly any wind, we decided we could repair some boats. So we took our beers and went to the boat park and did gelcoat repairs on two boats and we replaced the cerebrally on the other new club Laser. It was bought with broken cerebrally, but they threw in a couple of new ones, so we could replace them.
I am working on getting my own boat, I should have more news on Wednesday or next Sunday the latest.