Search Results

ActivityActivity dateActivity description
Push The Boat Out at SYC 2014-05-26 SYC's "Push The Boat Out" day to offer people a taster of dinghy sailing. A very successful day - about 70 people got to try sailing and the winds were an ideal F2 to F3. Liz got to try helming a Topper on dry land!
Out to sea dinghy cruise 2012-09-01 Safety boat duty on an out to sea cruise. Big tides and light winds.
Dawlish Air Show Dinghy Cruise 2014-08-23 "Officer of the day" and safety boat duty on an out to sea dinghy cruise that coincided with the Dawlish Air Show. A few dramas a long the way but saw the Red Arrows and, later, the battle of Britain memorial flight (including two Lancasters, a Spitfire and a Hurricane).
Sail on Nigel's Dart 2014-08-18 A decent wind (gusting maybe F5) for a storming sail on Nigel's Dart. Some excellent speeds with a top speed of over 17 knots - probably the fastest I've been under sail. Top stuff
Tags: Out to sea
Darting about in light winds 2014-07-21 Down river and out to sea (a little bit) on Nigel's Dart. Light, and sometimes non-existent, winds suggested that venturing too far on an outgoing tide might be a problem. Interesting tacking back up the estuary against the ebb tide - couldn't do that in the Wayfarer.
Tags: Out to sea
Sail on Nigel's Dart 2014-07-14 Beach cafe and just a bit beyond on Nigel's Dart 18. A day of lulls and gusts. A max speed of 14.6 knots is just a bit faster than I'm used to with my Wayfarer
Tags: Out to sea
Liz's first safety boat drive 2018-08-25 Liz's first safety boat drive since getting her "Power Boat 2" training. An out to sea dinghy cruise - out as far as the fairway buoy anyway.
Tags: Out to sea
Out to sea dinghy cruise 2014-05-31 An SYC dinghy cruise out to sea that actually made it out to sea! It looked as though there would be no wind at all for quite a while but gentle F2 / F3 filled in for most of the time.
Tags: Out to sea
Out to sea to avoid the World Cup 2010-06-27 Im not a great footie fan. In fact even though the Wayfarer had somewhat of a leak a solo sail to off Dawlish seemed like the best way of avoiding the match Unsurprisingly the 7.7 knots max boat speed was just off the Warren
Tags: Out to sea
SYC safety boat 2017-08-28 Safety boat for free sailing day at SYC
RNLI pursuit safety boat 2017-11-12 Safety boat for the RNLI pursuit race at SYC. With both Windguru and the Met Office Inshore forecasting F6 gusting F8, it was always going to be "interesting". The race was abandoned after about half an hour when it was gusting about F7 - but with not too many boats on the water (and only one broken mast). As we were heading back to the slipway, the gusts did reach F8 with so much spray being raised off the water it was hard to see ahead from the rib! No major problems though. There's a video here that shows some of the "action". Starts off looking quite benign but quickly shows that it was proper windy.
Liz's first safety boat drive 2018-05-20 Liz doing safety boat duty for the Squire's Cup at SYC. No capsizes but a bit of interest right at the end when it was briefly thought that one of the Darts was unaccounted for.
Safety boat at SYC 2017-06-24 Safety boat for SYC dinghy cruise. Nearly an out to sea cruise but it was a little lumpy just out towards the fairway buoy.
Safety boat at SYC 2017-06-18 Safety boat crew for Bob J at SYC. Three races in a gentle sea breeze with not a cloud in the sky.
SYC safety boat 2016-11-27 A last minute replacement safety boat duty at Starcross Yacht Club. No boats to rescue except us when the rather nice 50HP fuel injected outboard stopped working. Towed back to shore by the other safety boat!
SYC safety boat 2023-06-21 Wednesday evening SYC safety boat duty. Mostly very light winds
Topper Open At SYC 2016-10-09 Junior Topper Open event at Starcross Yacht Club. Safety boat crew for the 4 back-to-back races for the 23 boats at this open sailing event. Decent winds all day between F2 and F4 from the north east. GPS battery ran out after only a couple of hours so most of the track is missing.
Helford River 2018-09-06 A short walk down to one of our favourite canoeing spots on the Helford - without a canoe this time. This is where Scooby previously learnt to swim just for the fun of it so Liz was keen to take him back for another paddle.
SYC safety boat 2018-11-25 Safety boat crew for James B at SYC. After two weeks in Bangalore in 30 plus degrees of heat, a morning on the Exe Estuary just a few degrees above freezing was a shock to the system.
SYC safety boat crew 2019-03-31 At SYC to pretend to be an experienced safety boat crew for Rebecca B on her first drive of a club safety boat. Rebecca was more than fine and there were no "customers" as it was about a F3 to maybe F4. However, just as we were picking up the race mark buoys, a request from Solent Coastguard reached us via the club (Solent had rung SYC) to go the aid of "a cruiser stuck in the mud off Topsham". So we dropped the marks back into the water and hared off to Topsham where we found a Cornish Crabber (or something similar) stuck in the mud just yards outside of the channel. The water was down to about two foot so it was hard for us to do anything and the cruiser was well aground. After about 5 minutes the real RNLI inshore boat turned up and took over (they took the folk off the Crabber after re-deploying the anchor).
SYC safety boat 2020-05-30 First SYC safety boat duty of 2020 and first organised SYC activity since lockdown. There was a problem with righting an RS Feva - bloody boats keep going over. Then we had to tow a "submerged to the gunwhales" boat back to Lympstone.
SYC safety boat 2020-09-27 Late request to do a safety boat duty at SYC. Quite a short drive as the wind got up so the course was shortened to just one lap to comply with RYA Covid recommendations. Attended one rather good capsize. Camera decided that some photos would be better in black and white!
SYC safety boat 2022-06-04 Forecast of F4 gusting F6 and heavy rain meant that we turned the dinghy cruise into a sail around the club. But then there was actually very little wind and no real rain. Can't win sometimes.
Yacht towing 2023-04-29 Went down to SYC for a paddle but ended up towing a members 33 foot yacht back up the estuary as it has lost its prop and the winds were light and fading.
Squires Cup safety boat 2014-06-08 Safety boat duty on a rather damp and drizzly Sunday in June. Free tea though!
Safety boat at SYC 2013-02-17 Too windy for us to go out sailing as we havent been out for a couple of months. So ended up doing safety boat. Good fun - a little bouncy. Suspect the occasional max speed peaks are GPS data anomalies.
March safety boat 2013-03-24 Safety boat at SYC. A cold march day - two degrees centrigrade. The windchill factor made it feel like minus four. GPS data anomalies account for the three or four short peaks in speed.
Another cold safety boat duty 2013-04-01 Force 5 to force 6 winds but not many boats out. Usual caveat about top speeds and GPS data anomalies.
Safety boat for Hurricane and Dart open meeting 2013-06-30 A lovely morning / afternoon on the water doing safety boat duty for the Dart and Hurricane Open Meeting at SYC. Plenty of sun and wind.
Commodores Cruise 2013-07-06 Strawberries and cream at the Warren. Glorious weather. Liz doing safety boat driving.
Safety boat at SYC 2013-11-10 Safety boat at SYC on a pleasant autumn morning. Not a lot of wind so not much work for us on the safety boat (apart from trying to figure out how to make the race marks stand upright). Some GPS data anomalies... hence max speed figures out...
Bouncy safety boat duty 2014-04-20 A very wet and bouncy safety boat duty in mid April. About a force 6 on the estuary with waves of about 1 metre. Meant there was a lot of water coming over the front of the rib. Just the thing to help clear out a cold.. Forgot to turn the GPS on!
Sunny beach cafe safety boat duty 2014-05-17 A lovely sunny May sail down to the beach cafe and back. Light winds but just enough.
Free Sailing Safety Boat 2016-08-13 Doing safety boat for a Free Sailing at SYC on a lovely summer's afternoon. A pleasant F3 with the occasional gust made for almost ideal sailing conditions with just a few things to keep us slightly busy. A surprising overall distance as we spent the first 15 minutes at anchor (and expected to remain there for much of the afternoon!)
Safety boat for cancelled dinghy cruise 2015-05-16 The weather forecast was for F4 with F5 gusts and that is pretty much exactly what we got. The NW F5 gusts were too strong for a safe down river dinghy cruise so it ended up being replaced by a quick sail near the club
Safety boat at Laser Open meeting 2015-08-08 Safety boat with Bob J at the Laser Open meeting at SYC. The day started flat calm so we tied up to a buoy and listened to England retain the Ashes. A sea breeze started about 12:15 and the sailing started shortly after that. Four back to back races. We spent all our time at the leeward mark - hence the "ball of wool" GPS track. All in all, a very pleasant way to idle away a sunny August Saturday.
Dawlish air show dinghy cruise 2015-08-22 "Officer of the day" for the Dawlish air show dinghy cruise. A good day out even though not everything went to plan. The thunder and lightening was a bit of a surprise and curtailed the "out to sea" bit of the dinghy cruise a bit early and stopped the later parts of the show from happening e.g. the Red Arrows. The Vulcan bomber on its last ever visit to the Dawlish show was very impressive. All in all a very good day out!
Wednesday evening safety boat duty 2015-09-09 A Wednesday evening on the Exe Estuary crewing for Bob J on safety boat
March Safety Boat 2016-03-13 Shamefully, this is the first time we'd been on the water in 2016. A safety boat duty at SYC. Very little wind to start with but it filled in to be a nice south easterly (after half the fleet had given up due to lack of wind). First sailing photos with the new camera.
Squires Cup Safety Boat 2016-06-12 Safety boat for the Squires Cup racing for dinghies and cats on the Exe Estuary. Not a lot of wind so not much call for our services. Some rain at times.
SYC Mystery Dinghy Cruise 2016-07-13 "Officer Of The Day" for the SYC "mystery dinghy cruise". What the mystery was to be was, er, a mystery to us. So we decided that it would be cricket and drinkies on the Bull Sands in the middle of the Exe Estuary at low water. F4 gusting F5 a fair bit of the time but it seems a good time was had by all.
Back to top