Bull Sails. Sailmakers

The season awaits We have another summer upon us and sailors are stirring from their slumber, some hardy souls may have been sailing over the winter months. But there is no doubt the summer sailing is the focus. What awaits us in the coming season? We are all keen to improve on the previous year. In order to achieve this we need to set goals and intentions in place. For all sailors the reason we go out on the water is because we enjoy it. When setting our aspirations for the coming year we need to understand from which facet of this wonderful sport we derive the greatest pleasure. The appeal of sailing is so broad and it’s so diverse in its relevance to each individual. Some crews will look forward to participating in several regattas or championships with expectations of success. Others would be content to simply be able to fly a spinnaker without a hiccup. It is an interesting conundrum to think about what constitute a good days sailing to you. When you awake on the following d...

We have all been impressed by watching a racing yacht creaming around the top mark with the crew working in harmony. The spinnaker snakes up and bursts open. The headsail comes down. The boat settles quickly and gets on with the race at hand. A tight synchronised crew is probably a boats biggest asset. A tardy one its biggest liability! Getting a successful crew makeup, it takes time and patience. Last edition I wrote about how hard it is to get crew, let along top crew. It is a lengthy process from simply getting a group of people on a boat to making them a competent crew. But one that can be incredibly rewarding! Develop crew tolerantly The reason your new crewmember has joined you is a desire to go sailing, to learn a new activity and to have fun. The owner and existing crew members need to keep this in mind at all times. Keep your sailing upbeat and enjoyable. It is not always idyllic out on the water but even a bleak winter’s afternoon can be a lot of fun and provi...

Every week I hear the lament of the boat owner. “Where can I find a crew”? It seems to be harder to get one together these days. It is not uncommon to see the Saturday afternoon fleet slowly diminishing in size and calibre while good race boats spend their weekends swinging on moorings. So how do we go about introducing others to the wonderful world of yachting? Extolling the virtues of sailing to readers of this magazine is very much preaching to the converted, but it is worth pondering the question: Where are all the sailors? We know the typical demographic of the sailor. It is very a very popular activity with the younger set and why not? Parents see sailing as a great education. All of the skills needed for sailing are important life skills. Decision making, patience, team interaction and self-reliance are just a few. A lot of these kids will leave their yachting pursuits upon entering adulthood and make reappearance in their early forties once they have achieved a more s...

One of the new buzzwords we hear floating about these days is cross-training. In order to get fully fit it is not enough to just embrace the one exercise regime. We need to partake in some running or cycling for aerobic fitness, some weight routines for muscle tone and play some games to improve our hand eye co-ordination. All together they give us a much more rounded fitness benefit than persevering in one discipline only, even diverse sports such as sprinters or weightlifters are embracing the benefits of cross-training. Similarly we can go a long way to improve our sailing by taking on different styles of sailing to enhance our skills. Recently I was asked to sail a JB 5050 in the Australian Masters games in Geelong and other than being a very steep learning curve it was a lot of fun in a very convivial environment, it also(eventually)brought out some long forgotten skills . There is so much the keelboat sailor can learn from a stint in dinghies or a smaller one design boat and...

Q: what do you call someone who hangs out with sailors? A: A bowman Bowmen (and women) are probably the most visual of all sailors, they are perceived on one hand as the most menial of the crew. All brute strength and muscle whilst they haul sails up and down. Leaping around and yelling at other crew members. Alternatively they are the pinup boys of sailing, extreme athletes who make the crew further aft look positively dowdy. Bowmen tend to feature on the covers of sailing magazines more than any other member of the yachting fraternity. Most crewing positions involve close interaction whilst the bowman operates further in distance from others for a large part of the time and as a result is seen as an individual amongst a team. But in reality the bow position is a fulcrum of a large team effort and is very reliant on that crew behind him. It is impossible for him to do a good job without every other member of the ...