Second time out in the Osprey. Not terrible, not great either...

[Greenheart]

Thanks Iain, if you're still with us on this thread. The lazyjacks idea was just one stage beyond oars - the small sea of mainsail which was overflowing from the cockpit on Saturday before launching and after landing, reminded me that it'd be nice to have somewhere to stow it before and after use...

...maybe I could find a way, using a topping lift and some sort of boom-bag to envelope the lowered sail, rather than lots of lines linking boom and mast...

...but the safety issue comes through loud and clear, thanks.

I think the sailing club runs quite regular RIB-attended days of group-sailing for juniors...so I'll ask if they'll mother me as I put her on her side for practice's sake. I'll tie my lemonade empties at the masthead - I doubt there's room underwater for inversion.

Last month I saw an 18' skiff being rolled on shore there, possibly just to haul the main up. Not sure I can see how that method is less bother than a halyard though!

 

[Kukri]

Dan

I'm one of the racing crowd so my ideas are probably very different to yours. As for lee shores...try launching or recovering an 18' skiff with a fixed rudder and no halyards (yes, the main is "hoisted" with the boat on it's side with a wing removed) that soon teaches you how to do it!

Anyway, I'm kinda going to duck out of the conversation now, however before I do that I will plead with you not to put lazy jacks on. From a safety point of view in an unballasted trapeze boat that is an unthinkable nightmare. When SWMBO gets trapezing, and you get it wrong, and capsize, you do not want her landing on your mainsail's spiders web of string and slowly getting pulled under by her trapeze hook as the boat inverts. Similarly to windward, getting out from under that string would be utterly terrifying. The 18 fleet have lost 2 guys in recent years due to similar issues...and we don't have lazy jacks. Someone at my club just got helicoptered to hospital after an entrapment incident in the last month or so after putting a slower boat than yours upside down, and with respect both helm and crew were properly dressed and significantly more experienced.

Please, stop worrying about minutiae, get her a wetsuit, and some knives, and go and do a capsize drill, because at the moment the word "statistic" is starting to appear. Sorry to be blunt old chap, but conscience is telling me to write this.

Oh, and nothing wrong with anchors and a secondary means of propulsion...some big coastal regattas insist on those in the rules.

Out.

fwiw I agree with Iain; he certainly has 100x the experience in dinghies that I have - big gaff cutters are what I do know about - but coming from my lowly perspective what he says is right. (I assume the lazyjacks were a joke..)

 

[scruff]

Dan

I'm one of the racing crowd so my ideas are probably very different to yours. As for lee shores...try launching or recovering an 18' skiff with a fixed rudder and no halyards (yes, the main is "hoisted" with the boat on it's side with a wing removed) that soon teaches you how to do it!

Anyway, I'm kinda going to duck out of the conversation now, however before I do that I will plead with you not to put lazy jacks on. From a safety point of view in an unballasted trapeze boat that is an unthinkable nightmare. When SWMBO gets trapezing, and you get it wrong, and capsize, you do not want her landing on your mainsail's spiders web of string and slowly getting pulled under by her trapeze hook as the boat inverts. Similarly to windward, getting out from under that string would be utterly terrifying. The 18 fleet have lost 2 guys in recent years due to similar issues...and we don't have lazy jacks. Someone at my club just got helicoptered to hospital after an entrapment incident in the last month or so after putting a slower boat than yours upside down, and with respect both helm and crew were properly dressed and significantly more experienced.

Please, stop worrying about minutiae, get her a wetsuit, and some knives, and go and do a capsize drill, because at the moment the word "statistic" is starting to appear. Sorry to be blunt old chap, but conscience is telling me to write this.

Oh, and nothing wrong with anchors and a secondary means of propulsion...some big coastal regattas insist on those in the rules.

Out.

+100

Dan,

I sincerely hope you are sailing with rescue cover, and very attentive cover at that.

It is good that you are getting out sailing, but you are clearly out of your depth with this boat, which sounds poorly maintained, un-seaworthy and beyond your skill set just now.

You need to forget about oars, lazy jacks, anchors et all. You are missing the point entirely with these distractions.

As for getting a trapeze harness, I would bet a 5 finger kitcat that you trying to use that would end up badly. Very badly for you, and worse for your wife as she watches you drown.

You need to get yourself and your wife on a sailing course and immediately.

You refer to past sailing experience, but from what you have written it sounds frankly if you are unable to sail competently. This coupled with trying to teach a complete novice to sail is, if I'm honest ludicrous and down right dangerous.

I'm sorry to piss on your chips, but your tale sounds just like captain calamity and an accident waiting to happen.

Once you have got yourself on a course, and you are confident in your sailing & boat handling skills your next step is to ensure you and your crew have the correct safety equipment. A good quality, well fitting wetsuit for your wife falls into this category.

I don't want to read your sorry drowning in next months sailing rags.

Sailing is a great past time, and one that I'm sure we all enjoy greatly and derive huge amounts of pleasure from. Things however, when you don't know what your doing, can go badly very quickly.

You need to learn what you are doing, then start doing it safely. That's the way pleasure lies.

 

[Kelpie]

Blimey, that's a bit harsh Scruff :O
You never know, Dan might just pick his weather and sailing locations sensibly, get to grips with his boat over time, and you know, not die...

 

[Kukri]

Blimey, that's a bit harsh Scruff :O
You never know, Dan might just pick his weather and sailing locations sensibly, get to grips with his boat over time, and you know, not die...

+1.

Being a fossil left over from the 1960's, there was no other way when I started, and I don't remember many of us drowning.

 

[Greenheart]

Blimey, that's a bit harsh Scruff :O
You never know, Dan might just pick his weather and sailing locations sensibly, get to grips with his boat over time, and you know, not die...

Thanks Rob, that's just what I was thinking! My ideas are often daft, much less often dangerous. Although I do appreciate any genuine concern.

Anyway, I'm kinda going to duck out of the conversation now...

I reckon I'll join you. I'm getting the feeling I may have been misundertood along the way; my fault I expect.

Please be assured, everyone: boat and owner are not so decrepit & clueless as my posts appear to have suggested.

I'll hush up and concentrate on posting photos in future...they'll be clearer than my descriptions, for asking what to do when I'm in doubt.

Thanks folks...à bientôt

 

[Searush]

+100

Dan,

I sincerely hope you are sailing with rescue cover, and very attentive cover at that.

It is good that you are getting out sailing, but you are clearly out of your depth with this boat, which sounds poorly maintained, un-seaworthy and beyond your skill set just now.

You need to forget about oars, lazy jacks, anchors et all. You are missing the point entirely with these distractions.

As for getting a trapeze harness, I would bet a 5 finger kitcat that you trying to use that would end up badly. Very badly for you, and worse for your wife as she watches you drown.

You need to get yourself and your wife on a sailing course and immediately.

You refer to past sailing experience, but from what you have written it sounds frankly if you are unable to sail competently. This coupled with trying to teach a complete novice to sail is, if I'm honest ludicrous and down right dangerous.

I'm sorry to piss on your chips, but your tale sounds just like captain calamity and an accident waiting to happen.

Once you have got yourself on a course, and you are confident in your sailing & boat handling skills your next step is to ensure you and your crew have the correct safety equipment. A good quality, well fitting wetsuit for your wife falls into this category.

I don't want to read your sorry drowning in next months sailing rags.

Sailing is a great past time, and one that I'm sure we all enjoy greatly and derive huge amounts of pleasure from. Things however, when you don't know what your doing, can go badly very quickly.

You need to learn what you are doing, then start doing it safely. That's the way pleasure lies.

Cheerful little chappie aren't we?

However did I learn to sail a 14' prototype racing cat with an equally ignorant mate & never a "safety boat" in sight? Loads of mishaps, & a few cuts & bruises, but fatalities & serious injuries are pretty rare amongst cruising dinghy sailors.

 

[Iain C]

(...ducks back in)

Dan, it's your thread fella, you should stay in. I'm only ducking out because my idea of setting up a dinghy, as a racer, will be different to yours, and to a certain extent not relevant. I think you are trying to get to a "performance dinghy cruiser", and my ideas will be very different...I've never even had a painter on any dinghy I've owned, but FWIW I think your "dream" sounds like good fun and in many ways more satisfying than charging round the cans.

I was only concerned with your safety hence the lazyjacks plea, you're probably not going to realise something is a stunningly bad idea safety wise unless its pointed out. However when I started sailing dinghies in an old boat with SWMBO as crew I probably went through all the pain barriers you will face, but with the benefit of a very friendly club fleet who showed me the errors of my ways with regards to sailing and boat set up.

My best advice to you is join a club, put SWMBO in the front of a good helm's boat, you get a good crew to go in yours, and sail like that for a while, before teaming up again and knowing what you should each be doing, it will make a huge difference and there will be far less shouting...

 

[prv]

Being a fossil left over from the 1960's, there was no other way when I started, and I don't remember many of us drowning.

I wasn't born till the 80s, but we still didn't have safety boats and wetsuits when I was zooming around Chichester Harbour in my Mirror. I too managed to avoid drowning myself or my younger brother.

Pete

 

[LittleSister]

+ 1 to all of the above (especially the smaller sails and the rowing trip)

Also - Consider persuading your other half to go on a dinghy sailing course WITHOUT YOU (and preferably one where there's other women involved). There she'll learn to handle a boat with some confidence, practise capsize drill and discover it's all very manageable and not a catastrophe, and above all she'll have some fun doing it. She'll then be able to go sailing with you without all the anxiety, and getting the boat going properly will be a joint enterprise (sic) rather than her being dragged along and having to put up with 'your' adventure.

 

[armchairsailor]

Dan - you've got to keep the whole thing fun. Don't overthink things with lazyjacks etc. It's only an old dinghy FCS, and not worth the effort. At this rate you'll have every chandler in the country rubbing their hands with glee when they see you coming and flogging you the latest non-essential safety gadget.

As far as your good lady goe,s it's the same as teaching your other half to drive. Need I say more?

Clearly you're less than relaxed when out and fretting, with your mind in overdrive - getting enough time under your belt so you're confident and relaxed will pay dividends, and if you do it in parallel with your good lady, then that'll do the same for her. A sailing course or a local "guru" may be the thing - only you will know what will work best. You'll definitely need to have The Talk with her in any case, if you've not already done so - no sense in falling out over a trivial thing, and if it's going to be a long term thing, you've got to get your joint priorities sorted from the very outset. I've not yet been sailing with my wife because I didn't trust myself or my crappy old kestrel - it must be kept fun, or there's no point.

 

[Greenheart]

...it's your thread fella, you should stay in... ...I think you are trying to get to a "performance dinghy cruiser"... ...sounds like good fun and in many ways more satisfying than charging round the cans.

Thanks mate. And I value your contributions, especially since you recognise my "performance dinghy cruiser" intention. A 40 y/o Osprey might not be up to hard racing any more, but I reckon she's up to some energetic cruising with a non-urgent skipper. I nearly wrote "relaxed skipper" there, but I'm not quite that, yet.

Actually, the problem in this boat has only been my own pessimistic expectations...which haven't been realised. There I am, warily expecting a very sudden knock-down when there's a gust (and I'm stupidly warning SWMBO of the same)...yet nothing of the type has occurred. I've even persuaded forumites that I'm walking a perilous path! But really, besides a few daft mix-ups and misjudgements, it's been smooth and easy...so I hope extended use will rid me of ungrounded fears.

I hope it's not too late to inject an idea I'd had, re. lazyjacks...

...obviously their benefit is keeping the mainsail compactly controlled during hoisting/lowering and when it isn't being used, rather than blow about untamed, filling the cockpit as dinghy sailors have always had to accept...but when the sail is up, does anything prevent the lazyjacks from being slackened off and held forward at the gooseneck, under tension to prevent sagging?

They wouldn't need disconnecting from the boom, just cleating or securely elasticating, pulled tight and out of the way. Thus not endangering swimmers. The idea came to me ages ago for a different reason - as being better for the clean flow of air over the sail.

I've not yet been sailing with my wife because I didn't trust myself or my crappy old kestrel - it must be kept fun, or there's no point.

Thank you, Armchairsailor. I expect you too have a sound basis of know-how and enough sense to keep yourself out of trouble, but aren't over-confident. That'll be me, once I've learned that each approaching ripple on the water doesn't mean an imminent swim.

Love the Kestrel, even the old ones. It was on my list of nice brisk all-purpose designs.

 

[claymore]

Not read 60 odd of the posts so apologies if repeating.
We used to own 799. So - the mainsheet cleat is a good thing, dont scrap it but find a technique of uncleating it every time you tack and then spin it round the back every time you tack.
You would give yourselves time if you began be sailing from beam reach to beam reach until you get a system perfected. Finally, have you no window in the genoa?
And finally finally, a GP main or similar would be a great option before you graduate up to the full Osprey main. Have a look around club notice boards for one someone would like to be rid of.
Dear Heart weighs around 8 stone and I had another 4 when we sailed ours from Whitehaven to Ramsey, IOM.

 

[Kelpie]

Re lazyjacks: your call, Dan, but FYI I inherited such a system on our Vega and when we got a new boom in the second season of ownership I never got around to fitting the lazyjacks. I have never missed them. I think a boat would have to be seriously big to really benefit from them.
Suggest you just keep an ample supply of elasticated sail ties stowed around the the thwart, that's what I do to tame the Wayfarer mainsail.

 

[Lakesailor]

I fitted and removed lazyjacks on two 18 ft cruisers. Complete waste of time.
In an Osprey they will create more lineage to get caught up in, require more moving about it the boat and possibly standing up off-centre whilst fart-arsing about.

Bad idea.

lots of positive ideas in this thread. Without Mrs Dan on-board the project sounds as though it will stutter to a halt.

 

[Cantata]

An interesting thread. I contributed early on with a remark about the need to face forward when tacking a boat with a centre main.
Anything I say has to be treated with caution as I raced dinghies of all sorts shapes and sizes from the age of 12 for 50+ years. Sailing a dinghy is second nature to us old fogies who've been doing it that long and if we've not been trained to be trainers then we don't necessarily understand a newcomer's difficulties.
I have to say that I agree with others that this boat is not the right one for you despite your laudable desire for a 'performance cruiser'. Ospreys were designed to race, not cruise, and although they are not outright beasts, they are not particularly forgiving either. As also others have said, don't go adding bits of stuff like lazyjacks (I agree, downright bloomin' dangerous on a capsizable dinghy), the boat was designed to be sail with both sails, and never reefed. Never heard of a dinghy without toe-straps either. Fundamental.
Possibly others have said this (I haven't read every post) but I think you should go on a Level 2 sailing course, with your missus, to get some good habits nailed down as well as build confidence with both of you, then get yourself an old Wanderer or Wayfarer. The latter especially you might think is staid, but it ain't, it not only sails beautifully, it is pretty quick too.
And finally - I learned to sail at a club, made lifelong friends in the process, and 50-odd years later we are both still members. I don't know if joining a club has been mentioned, but if not, then I recommend it. The vast majority of dinghy clubs are populated with friendly, ordinary, down-to-earth like-minded people, if I were you I'd ask around, find one that suits you, join it, and join in.

 

[Kermit]

I wasn't born till the 80s, but we still didn't have safety boats and wetsuits when I was zooming around Chichester Harbour in my Mirror. I too managed to avoid drowning myself or my younger brother.

Pete

I started sailing in the late 60's, no wetsuits, we'd sail until our legs turned the same shade of blue as our shorts.

The first wetsuits were the kits that you glued together with the yellow tape over the seams. After half a season you looked like you'd
been ravaged by the dog at No. 7.

Tell that to the kids of today.........Luxury.

 

[prv]

I started sailing in the late 60's, no wetsuits, we'd sail until our legs turned the same shade of blue as our shorts.

I used to wear green denim shorts, with yellow nylon "waterproof" trousers over the top (the cheap hiking kind). The trousers didn't soak up water, and they kept the wind off to some extent. So I don't know how blue my legs used to get

Other kit included plimsoles (green flash or similar), a really thick heavy sweater in greasy white wool (I think it may have been an adult one that shrank in the wash, hence getting even denser), and yes we did have lifejackets, orange foam ones with a big collar and a whistle that was always dangling around on its bit of string.

I should really dig out my mum's photos from those days...

Pete

 

[Kukri]

I once horrified the sprogs by turning up to go dinghy sailing dressed just like that (well, I could not find genuine Dunlop Green Flash plimsolls..) .complete with floppy hat...

That got the Embarrassing Parent of the Year award... Remember Elvstrom soaking his jumper to add weight?

 

[Greenheart]

Thanks for these additions, advice, POVs...and patience.

My apparel on the boat is often decidedly old-school...the whole boat cost less than a decent drysuit. First time out, I wore chinos and tattersall cheque shirt over my wetsuit. This was because after 19 years without wearing it, I thought it best to squeeze it on in privacy at home, topped with normal clothes to disguise my fluorescence in Sainsbury's for the picnic-shopping trip. I must've looked like a farmer rescuing sheep in a flood...when I stepped in to hold the head to windward, I was instantly wet up to my neck.

Cantata, if I didn't stress my gratitude earlier, your advice re. facing forward during tacks is heartily appreciated.

I almost bought a Wayfarer last year. I think it was an ex-training boat which must have carried four or five people, every day for forty long seasons. It was inconveniently far from here, and much more money than the Osprey, so the purchase didn't follow.

Even though the exciting prospect of the Osprey's performance helped me decide to buy, it will have been noticed here that my out-of-practice outlook would thus far have been amply satisfied by a Wayfarer's more sedate stride...

...although, Wayfs heel too...and as time goes on and I gain experience, it may be benficial to have expected the worst from the first...if I'd bought a Wayfarer, loaded it with 100kg of camping kit and confidently headed for the Channel Islands, what could be more problematic/dangerous than inverting it offshore, having assumed that wouldn't happen?

I knew when I bought the Osprey, she's not the obvious forgiving, anchoring, reefing, rowing, load-carrying cruising choice. To my mind she makes up for these 'deficiencies' with her sheer size and beauty, pace (when her ways are learned) and relative movability ashore. And after some of the tippy little drip-dry designs I've previously known, my experience of her so far has made me sure she's a great, characterful choice - it's only me that needs to adjust.

Claymore, my respects to you and madam for your Irish Sea trip. Yes, our genoa has a window, but not in a convenient position for looking-through! I'll try hoisting it higher off the deck...until I learn a good reason not to.

I really am not going to say any more about lazyjacks. There'll either be photos posted, indicating satisfactory use, or an enduring silence indicating a sheepish change of heart, or just nothing ever, indicating busy undertakers. Thanks for the warnings though. And, yes, sail-ties are high on my shopping list.

SWMBO isn't a member of the sailing club. The boat is a costly daftness in her mind (heaven knows what she'd call the racing crews' expenditure, which must easily be ten or twenty times what I paid for attire, boat and bits & pieces).

A lightweight wetsuit is about all I'll get her to agree to spending on. Paying for training, isn't going to happen. And...when I know this boat and rig properly myself, I'll be less of a liability as an instructor. I taught numerous friends to sail in more modest boats. If any of them carried on sailing afterwards, they won't be nervous, because in those boats, I wasn't nervous.

If it wasn't for several very welcome tips gained here, perhaps I should have spared readers the accounts of my first trips in this boat? Then I could have posted pics of "arrival at Roscoff" or "first in class, RTIR". Okay, unlikely. Especially tacking while facing aft...