12 July 2008

estimated 8 nautical miles

Well, this as a short morning and afternoon sail with Bob and Nigel again. We had a very good lunch at the club and watched and sailed around the Optimists who were racing.

I squashed my finger and its bruised and developed a blood blister under the nail from when I was putting on the rudder. Bob said something and I looked up and the rudder swung round and squashed my finger. Must remember to concentrate and not try to do both things at the same time in the future.

I also lost the nut off the rudder bolt while sailing today. I will try to get a new slightly longer rudder bolt with a locking nut.

I really wish I'd had the still camera [which Sue took to the UK] as the Optimists would have been great to photograph.

No more sailing for 3 weeks now sadly as I am off to the UK.

11 July 2008

24 nautical miles

Well, this was my longest trip so far - approx 24 nautical miles - out to just past Cape Pila. I wanted to have a look round the cape to see about sailing to Potamas or Agia Napa some day.

I was travelling with Nigel and Bob. Bob sails and was taking the helm from time to time. Galini was sailing wonderfully, it was a really enjoyable trip. I'd like to find a way to mount my sighting compass so I can use it as a steering compass too.

I didn't have Cape Pila as a waypoint set and so headed off in roughly the right direction till we could see it! The sky was so hazy visibility was down to about 4 nautical miles.

New boat at the club

A new boat has arrived at the club - a Conger dinghy - a 'conger segelboot' in German. And a strong class like the Wayfarer with a class association.

She will live next to Galini, my Wayfarer and is an interesting German dinghy. I don't have pictures of her sailing, but the one on the left is from Wikipedia. [The one at the club has a brown or orange coloured hull.]

She's an interesting boat, approximately the same size as the Wayfarer, but with a cuddy for two people to sleep in - but only sleep... no other amenities! She hasn't been sailed for a few years so suffers from all the lack of TLC that Galini suffered from before I acquired her.

Her owner, Chris, is from Limassol, but hopefully we will see him most weekends of the season sailing here.

High tension at the club today - one of the Lasers nearly sank! Somehow the bung for the buoyancy was removed/left out and the boat was getting lower and lower in the water, while one of the club members was sailing her. Fortunately they came into the land before she totally sank!

5 July 2008 - new place in the club

9.5 nautical miles

Final sail with Matt today before he returns to the UK. It started gentle and I let Matt sail her, but then got a bit more blustery and I took over the helm. Nice sail.

And... Nicos said they are rearranging the boats on the hard and so instead of a long haul across the stones/pebbles which is a pain with a relatively heavy boat, we are now at the edge of the tarmac and from there straight to the slipway! Oh, so nice!

Christos has found the club racing 470 and was busy working out how to rig her. I looked at how they rig the spinnaker and found what looks like the best sort of turning blocks for the spinnaker guys at the stern [Harken 2026]. They use ratchet blocks for controlling the guys, which seems like expensive, so I am not sure I will do that though.