I’ve been joining the Poole Yacht Club ILCA / Aero fleet on Saturdays so far this year as my local club does no racing over the Winter. The Saturday format is a micro regatta of five short back-to-back races which is great for practising starts. I’m enjoying sailing in Poole Harbour again and it’s been fun to have different tides to play in. A murky very cold early January day.That’s me in 3328 I also did the RYA VHF marine radio course, which is a globally recognised qualification. This is a great course; not only did we learn to deal with regular comms and emergency situations, but we also l ..read more

Starcross Steamer, Handicap Pursuit Race January This was a great start to the year and I finished just under halfway down the fleet which was an open event personal best. January Solo Sailing in Swanage Making the best of breaks in the weather Yeovil Handicap Pursuit Race February A great fun race but tricky, inland sailing is quite different to sea sailing. Lee on Solent, two-day Aero open, February This event had ups and downs. I totally messed up race one by getting my course wrong in the tides, but got it right thereafter. My starts were poor costing many places but the beats w ..read more

Last Sunday saw the first race and first open event of 2023, the Starcross Steamer, a handicap pursuit race on the Exe estuary in the UK. Pursuit races are a great fun race format. All boat classes have a handicap, the race has a fixed length (e.g. 150 mins), slower boats start first, faster boats later with the idea being everyone is trying to catch up to and overtake everyone else. After the fixed race time, the race is stopped, and positions are taken by the safety boats. Here’s the write-up and results in Yachts and Yachting, I sailed an RS Aero 9. It was an early start to the day, and we ..read more

Looking back, 2022 was a great year on the water. My main sailing goal for the year was to compete in the RS Aero Championships, a five day event. The months of training were a success and I managed all five days. In May I did a kayak fishing course and got to paddle around Old Harry Rocks. I didn’t catch anything but paddling around the rocks was awesome. We want to do more kayaking in 2023 and try to catch some fish too. The first open of the year was the Lymington RS Aero open in May. It was a very light wind tricky conditions day. From May to July, I’m a volunteer dinghy instructo ..read more

I took part in the RS Aero Europeans this Summer, a five-day event held at the Weymouth & Portland National Sailing Academy (WPNSA), the venue for sailing during the 2012 Olympics. This event was part of the epic RS Games. I was training up to this one all year, and it was an amazing week with five days of fantastic racing. I learned so much, not just from the racing but from the chats off the water, and fellow sailors offering advice and tips. There’s a good write-up in Yachts and Yachting and some footage on Youtube (RS Games days 12-16). Here are some of my pictures. The 7s coming bac ..read more

Sail World write up. This was my first open of the year, three back to back races in the Solent at Lymington Town Sailing Club. I was in a small Aero 9 fleet and happy with how things went. There wasn’t too much fleet separation and the last one was quite tight racing ..read more

The eagle-eyed will notice that I am on the wrong side of the boat. Well,… if you don’t capsize now and then, you aren’t trying hard enough. Photo by Lucy Slater ..read more

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At last, the sailing season has started again with Swanage Sailing Club’s traditional Opener Cup. It was a very light wind day, so I went with the 9 sail. I tried my best to get clean air and came in third which isn’t a bad start to the racing season. Photos by Nicky Richmond ..read more

2021 was still a COVID year and things didn’t get going till May. It was impressive how racing events were run within the safety guidelines, and how things like briefings were moved async and online over video and, comms was enhanced with channels like WhatsApp. I’d like to say a big thank you to all the clubs who put on events, including my own in Swanage, and the RS Aero class for being so friendly and welcoming. It’s a great fun boat and a great class. First Home Race of the Year April This was a special one. We’d been ‘locked down’ in the months before and I think everyone just wanted to g ..read more