Trouble with having been in Greece for the last fortnight.....

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..one week working on the boat and the next sailing it in NW winds of force 6-9 is that I missed the chance of replying to Ken Munn's spat about "All White Boats".

Seems to have had a record response at around 1.5K views and 50+ responses.

I don't sail an "all white boat", mine is white with two blue stripes you see so I don't see the criticism as applying to Mary Flavin. Also, it sails differently from my previous boats but then I didn't expect the same characteristics from each and every boat I've sailed or owned over the last 40 years. Why should I? My old Hunter 30 with it's very narrow beam and fine entry wouldn't go very fast classically close hauled when going to windward but ease the main to squash the slot and she shot off like a train.

When I first sailed the Bavaria I regularly had her twisting round when she took a gust from ahead of the beam but now I use much less sail on this point, particularly MAIN sail. Take the last bash back to Gouvia on Friday in 27kts gusting 33 of wind 15 degrees ahead of the stbd beam. We carried no main and 55% of the #2 genoa. She steered straight as an arrow, displaying Mr Munn's desireable " ...heeling just a little more and taking a little water on the side deck" in grand fashion - my little bit of stickey tape never more than a few inches from the top of the wheel. Even my friend David, an ex- saloon car racing driver but of limited helming experience was having a great time as we charged along with the SOG never below 7.3 and around 7.9 most of the time. We very quickly overhauled a Bav 38 ahead who had almost full sail up and was heeling around 25 degrees and who's progress was regularly halted by his boat rounding up wildly. But then, I suppose, being a charterer he hadn't the experience of the boat long enough or maybe listened too much to the "traditionalists" telling him how a yacht "SHOULD" sail rather than being realistic and accepting how she does.

I wonder what Ken Munn would have made of being the first to set eyes upon the first sailing catermerans to hit our shores or even the first tris (did't soms slip of a girl do something notable in one of those recently?) had he been around at the time.

Then there's trying to get a long keeler motoring astern and doing anything like answering the helm of course! Ohh nasty! We met a lady in Kassiopi who had sold her long keeler because of the number of times she'd had disasters trying to get it back into it's berth.

Sorry Ken, I thought that your article was more in the Victor Meldrew vein that that of an informative and useful sailing magazine article.

Nuff said except that although the handling of a Lotus Elan was excellent, did you ever try to change the oil filter on one or experience total darkness when traversing a bump in the dark switched the headlights off when the pods bounced the microswitches off.

Steve Cronin
 

Peppermint

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Re: Trouble with Bavs is

They take a bit of experience to get them sorted. They also need your chosen reefing method to be as friction free as possible. Cos your going to reef often.

From experience, I was sailing a 41 at the weekend in decent winds, you can keep one going pretty well under to much canvas, if you treat it like a racer and trim trim trim.
 

beancounter

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The trouble with having been in Devon for a few days...

...is that I missed this posting.

Erm...as the guilty party who initiated the post on here in response to TK's article, I didn't see it as a spat. In YM, Ken put forth his views in his own inimitable style; views which are not unfamiliar to us here in S'butt. After a lot of (mostly) amicable posting, we all kinda finished up in a gentlemanly "agree to disagree" situation. No spat, no toys out of pram, no hair pulling, and only a little bit of name calling.
Jolly civilised for Scuttlebutt, don't you think?...
 

ChrisE

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At the risk of continuing this discussion longer than it merits

Nice to hear an account from someone in actual conditions. I certainly agree with the point about the theory and practice of sailing one's own craft.

I sometimes wonder, though, whether the point we all bang on about sea-kindliness/boat handling characteristics is usually discussed from different points of view, that of day, or at least not long distance, sailing vs passage making.

The fast romp of a day sail when it is actually quite fun to be keeping boat roaring along is not so much fun when you have 4 or 5 days short handed to get to the destination. Indeed, I'd go as far to say that the motion that goes with fast passage making is counter to preserving one's energies for a longer trip.

On a longer passage in fresh or strong winds we deliberately under power in an effort to get the best of both passage times and keeping ourselves in good nick for the duration.
 
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