ACF Sailing – Update 19-20th January 2019

24 Jan 2019 by Matt Grier

Dear Sailors and Supporters,

Last weekend we held our first sailing weekend of the year and could not have asked for better weather.

Saturday we had light breezes and enabled us to just take out one boat and go through the process of getting the Spinnaker up and flying in a nice calm environment with no rush. Being the first time out in 2019 and January the cold took a little getting used to. When you haven’t taken part in much winter sailing, it takes a little trial and error to get your clothing right. But the biggest challenge in the sport is to keep your body moving in the light winds and keep the blood flowing, which can obviously be very challenging for certain types of disabilities / impairments. Thus the able have less excuses, Ha. Individuals that don’t have much experience tend to naturally move around less and wait to be told what to do or are watching and learning, the challenge then falls to skippers/experienced crew to keep an eye on them and keep them busy enough to stay warm. Key – remember to keep moving the best you can and wear good base layers. Thus our sport can be fun in the winter if you just keep moving and activate.

After the Saturdays spinnaker practice and warmth technique updates, Sunday ended up being colder yet everyone was happy and the sun was out meaning upwind was cold but downwind was stunning and warm. Thus we postponed racing for a little more spinnaker practise. Sailing upwind and tacking loads to stay warm, ended up becoming roll tacking practice and accidental match racing to an non-identified destination (other than up-wind and up-tide for an easy journey back). We ended up visiting the brambles post in the middle of the Solent, turned around and popped the spinnakers up.

Having had the perfect winters calm day, with lots of people are hiding in the warmth gave us the freedom of the Solent for lots of gybes and generally a nice calm sail back over to the Sharpe beach. Where we ended with 2 short races using the spinnakers for the first time. This brought with it the next challenge, of planning ahead different ways to hoist and drop the spinnakers linked with the tactical element of racing.

Our aim is to, always use spinnakers whenever the weather and experience of the team allows and are looking forward to a nice build up towards the summer months.

If you’ve not yet joined us and would like to know how to get involved then please do contact us via info@acfsailing.org and check out what we’ve been up to in our previous new articles and upcoming events @ www.acfsailing.org – Each event now shows restricted places (creating a waiting list), this is just for management to prevent us being overwhelmed and making sure we have enough crew to fill a boat.

Huge thanks as always to the CCYC members / staff and volunteers for making this all possible. It’s making a fantastic environment that we know if individuals didn’t need to go home they would always hang around chatting for hours. Also for the amazing support given on Boxing day, it’s still not hit home how much local support we have from the club and local business, we can’t thank you enough. Please check out our Face Book page and the CCYC’s for photos/reports (You don’t have to be on Face book to view as i know many don’t, but liking it does help if you are on there).

Yours sincerely,

The ACF Sailing team



Location

Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club

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