The sailing is at a club called Beech Bough, a 250 acre reservoir in Kent. I'm no judge of inland waters, but 250 acres sounds Quite Big, and looks to have attracted a good number of 300 sailors. The weather looks a bit mixed, it strikes me as one of those forecasts that is pretty much meaningless 5 days out. But if the forecast is correct, it shows a nice variance in conditions. But one thing that is certain is that it will be cold on the Saturday night sleeping in the van!
The last time I sailed on inland waters was crewing at the ISO Inland Championships, which was held in a gusty October force 6. After the umpteenth tea-bagging upwind, I declared to my helm that this was to be the first and final event in my inland sailing career. [I should point out, the tea bagging was not his fault, the heading shifts were significant and immediate, and we couldn't see them on the water before they hit, they seemed to come down onto the boat from on high. Horrible]. Unfortunately the entire 300 open calendar appears to be on lakes this year, so I'm breaking the declaration and embracing the challenging conditions of my 300 inland brethren!
If I have a bad day on Saturday, I plan to get fully involved in the refreshments in the evening to the point of not being able to operate my iPad for blogging. Come to think of it, I'll have the same approach if it is a good day. So no updates before the end of the event.
I'm not the right person to give boat comparisons Tillerman, in the last 15 years I've sailed a Laser twice and never set foot in an RS100. The 300 is the only singlehander I've owned and regularly sailed.
ReplyDeleteThat said, we are off to Minorca soon and the Laser, RS100 and Musto Skiff are on the list of boats to sail. Training-partner-Claire and ex-tea-bagging-helm-Mike will also be sailing them, so perhaps we'll have a Y&Y style test of singlehanders!
It would be good to hear what you all think of the different boats in Minorca. Do they have any RS300s there too? I don't recall seeing one.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately there are no 300s in Minorca. To my knowledge there have been about 230 built since the boat was put into production in 1998, and the vast majority are in the UK I think. Second hand B-Rig boats are like hens teeth, the epoxy hull (with all its curves) seems to last and last.
ReplyDeleteSo I shall be sampling other boats in Minorca, looking forward to trying something a bit different.
So it never really took off? Any idea why? Is the RS100 doing any better than the 300 in the UK?
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of sailors bought one when the 300 was first launched, and then found it a bit of a handful. So it got a reputation for being difficult to sail and I think that is was kept production numbers down. But they are still being made, and a very high proportion of the boats are active, and we love our boats.
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