19/02/13 - Sailing - Petersburg

19th February 2013
Sailing - Brian - Petersburg OEC
Today it was 3*C. Wind F2 - 3. Mainly sunny with a few showers (but they didn't mean it)!

• Today my aims were to do a bit more work with the spinnaker and try to improve my boat trim without being told by Brian.

When we arrived at Petersburg this morning, we decided to go out straight away while there was a bit of wind. There was Peter, Fionan, Emmet and myself today, so we just rigged up the two vibes and once they were ready to go we went to get changed. Before we went out on the lake, Brian asked Fionan to do a bit of teaching and asked him to show the rest of us how to rig the spinnaker on the boat. This was great for Fionan because he is a very talented sailor and this gave him the chance to work in the role of the instructor.

Fionan was nervous teaching us, but he did a great job and showed us everything with good clear instruction.

We went down to the lake & launched the boats, Emmet & I were in one Vibe and Peter & Fionan went in the other vibe.

Brian set up a course for us just outside the bay where we had to beat up wind, then go around the buoy on to a beam reach then go around the next buoy on to a training run and down to the next buoy where you just had to luff up to get back onto a beat. Emmet was on helm first and we started to go around the course, helping each other with trim of the boat and sail trim also. We kept forgetting that we only needed to luff up on the third buoy and we kept going to tack around the buoy! It would be ok if we just did it once but maybe it was too early in the morning or something because we went to tack instead of luffing up 3 times in a row in the same place! haha!

It was good craic though and it was a good way to train yourself in what to do with the sails and the boat trim on each leg of the course. After 3 times around the course, it was my turn on helm.

Brian came over and gave feedback to Emmet on his helming while we were swapping places in the boat. It's always interesting to hear the feedback because even when you think you had it nearly perfect, Brian will always find something for you to improve on. I enjoyed going around the course and this time Emmet & I remembered to luff up on the third buoy instead of tacking and making a mess of the course!

Brian noticed that I had improved on knowing how to place my body weight and my crews body weight for the trim of the boat. I was glad that I was getting it right because that was one of my aims for today.

When we had all been around the course 3 times each, we had to come alongside Brian in the power boat and then we all went in for tea and a pee break.

After our tea break we went back out to the same course but this time we had to do blindfolded sailing! The person on helm had to be blindfolded and the crew had to tell them what to do. 

Emmet went on helm first and I was in charge of telling him what to do! It was quite hard because you have to think really clearly before telling them what to do and you need to think about how the boat will react to what you tell them to do before you tell them to do it because a wrong move could mean a capsize and a shivery session! The hardest part was when we needed to tack or jibe because you have to tell them 'Tack' and then 'Duck' when the boom comes across and then it's really hard to get them to line up again so that we are going the right course because they obviously cant see where we are heading. I was a bit late telling Emmet to line up straight and at one point we tacked and straight after that we had an accidental tack! ...needless to say Emmet took off his blindfold and Brian came over in the powerboat laughing at what he had just watched!

We swapped places and I was now blindfolded on helm. Emmet was crew and in charge of telling me what to do. We ran into difficulties straight away because I wouldn't be the best with my left's and right's and so when Emmet would tell me 'left' I would sometimes go to my other left! So Brian suggested that instead of 'left' and 'right' Emmet should try 'luff up' and 'bear away' to tell me what to do instead. Amazingly,this worked and we didn't have as many problems after that.

I thought this was a great exercise to run with sailors of our level because we have got to the stage where we are comfortable following a course so it's a great way to make it more challenging and to make us think about what we have to do to make the act in a particular way.

When we had all had a go at this, Brian gave us 20minutes free for all sailing so we could just sail around the lake in any direction we wanted having the craic!

When we came back in, we de-rigged the boats and Brian went to print off some pictures for us to revise the parts of the boat because we are a bit rusty on knowing the names of different parts of the sail etc and he said it is important to know. So we all got a picture of a boat to take home and label.

Fill in the labels!

Environmental Interest of the day:

Today Brian told us that Lough Mask is a limestone lough covering 22,000 acres in area and that is it one of the best trout fisheries in Ireland. It is famous for its large ferox trout and anglers take a number of these large trout every season. They are usually 10lb in weight but the largest recorded on the lake is apparently 18lb.