J-class sail question

[horatio_nelson]

To the OP, do you mind me asking your grandfather's name please? Reason being I have a mounted half-hull model of Endeavour. The attached plaque reads, "Endeavour. To Roy Mitchell, a member of her crew. Americas Cup Races 1934. From C E Nicholson."

I won't give his name - I'd be giving my mother's maiden name on the internet, which, particularly bearing talktalk's troubles in mind, is probably unwise..

I'd love to see a picture of your model if possible I don't know much about my grandfather's cup exploits, he died when I was small sadly. I've found lots of yachtie stuff, it's been fascinating. Just to hand right now I've got the Royal Corinthian YC 1948 Rules and Constitution booklet It's fantastic.

Lady members a required to be the " owner of a yacht not less than 2 tons TM that has been her property for not less than one year".

No such requirements for the chaps, one just had to pass the committee vote - "one black ball in five to exclude".

Great stuff

I'll scan it and post it up at some point, it's a great read!

 

[KellysEye]

I mentioned sailin on Velsheda this is what happened:

The Daily Telegraph chartered Velsheda and asked 17 people, all experienced sailors, to join the advertising manager on a weeekend trip from Ocean Village to Cherbourg and back. The intention being to eat and drink too much. The forecast was for a gale but with a 130 foot steel boat and experienced crew with a professional skipper and mate it wasn't a problem. When I first saw Velsheda it was noteworthy that the only winches on her were for the runners. As we were soon to find out the main was so heavy it took ten people to hoist it, I guess that's just as it was in the old days before they fitted a grinder in the cockpit.

After passing the Isle of Wight on our starboard side the wind started to go over gale force. We changed down to storm trysail, which took six people lift out the locker, and a storm jib. About three hours later the analogue wind speed indicator was jammed on 55 knots and stayed that way for hours. Given that gusts can be forty per cent higher than the average wind speed, and the average was over 55 knots, it could have been gusting to over 77 knots.

You can't see the waves for the spray and the visibility was about 50 to 60 feet in any direction including upwards. It was also like sailing in the dark. The dinghy came loose and two of us went forward to tighten the lashings werind a harness nd here were no guardrails.

Eventually the skipper decided we weren't going to make Cherbourg, but we could make Cowes, so we gybed the boat, which was interesting. We arrived off Cowes and the wind had dropped back to a gale and we picked up Velsheda's dedicated buoy at the second attempt which we were rather pleased with, she didn't have an engine at the time. In Cowes the landord kept the pub open until we achieved our original objective.

The next day it was still gale force and we beat our way up past the Needles and considered putting the spinnaker up on the way back to Ocean Village. Apparently it's about the size of a football pitch but the skipper might have been exaggerating. It takes eighteen people to get the monster up and the skipper decided it was not a good idea because most of us hadn't done it before. We found out later that we had encountered a secondary low and the wind had gusted to 85 knots.

 

[matthew99]

Regarding Endeavour and J Classes I've copied across an extract from 'Recollections - a trip down memory lane in and around Tighnabruiach with the Kyles Elderly Forum'. I hope it's of interest, let me know if you want to read further and it's not on the Web.

 

[tat27]

What a fantastic story - just what this forums is all about - I love stories around these Js and a lot of the pics (lie these) that the J Class Facebook site publish. A story like this helps put some meet on the bones !