What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach…or the When boats meet one.

SECTION A. RIGHT OF WAY. (what has this got to do with freedom? where’s my sovereignty? Is sovereignty the same as freedom? did we vote?)

A boat has right of way over another boat when the other boat is required to keep clear of her.

Rule 10 ON OPPOSITE TACKS.

When boats are on opposite tacks, a port-tack boat shall keep clear of a starboard-tack boat.

Ok, so for the non sailors out there (and for the sailors that might get a little confused by which tack they are on), how do you know when you are on Starboard tack? Starboard is yacht speak for right hand side of vessel Port is left, (memory aide: Is there any red port left). Well when the wind is blowing over the starboard side of the boat you are starboard and have the underlying right of way. This is the first rule you learn, it’s like driving on the left.

Knowledge is power and starboard tack is powerful, boats on port tack have to avoid you.

Sailing being a corinthian sport and club racing is generally a friendly game of sailing, most of the time people will hail “starboard” at you to let you know, a bit like a toot of your car horn. Oi Oi! i’m here and i’m starboard sort of thing. Like car horns you don’t have to go round shouting starboard at everyone as port tackers the onus is on you to avoid the starboard boat.

Clear? a port tack boat must keep clear of a starboard tack boat. simples…oh yes. Crystal.

Late Spring 2.

Kingsfleet (P), Oystercatcher (P), Quay (P) x 2 line

With the last of the ’69 drank the teams turned up at Felixstowe Ferry Sailing Club to be greeted by 12 knots of breeze, warm sunshine and a ebb tide, a river course was set. A downwind start. The Dom Perignon already in the chiller, this ferry evenings don’t get much better than this.

The two handers were joined this week by www.actionoutdoors.co.uk ‘not a merlin, but they can ski’ David & Asa Robertson a welcome return to the ‘not a merlin’ fleet in their yellow peril.
With seconds to go the Merlin Rocket of Scammell / Read found themselves a row back at the hoist, Lewis & Hawkins gybed onto starboard and started to hoist at the gun, Boom! no not the start gun, Crunch! that was the sound of a port tack laser sailing hard into Lewis / Hawkins who were busy with their hoist. For those unfamiliar with ‘not a merlins’ they have a gybing asymetric pole that launchess out of the bow of the boat, this is about head high for a laser sailor. Also ‘not a merlins’ are much quicker to sail if they don’t have a laser attached to the bow with a confused laser sailor also present.

Scammell / Read in the Merlin Rocket narrowly avoided this hybrid love child of two dinghies found themselves surrounded by the convocation of lasers, working themselves to the inside just by the jetty to get clear air they started to ease away. Staying out of trouble towards the middle of the river www.actionoutdoors.co.uk ‘not a merlin’ found themselves in clean air with space.

Scammell / Read soon found out that the carbon rudder on a merlin is quite long and the ‘break away’ cleat system was rubbish, so they soon found themselves hard aground and out of the boat to take the rudder off (an expense of carbon?) Watching the fleet sail away and team actionoutdoors Robertson / Robertson in the yellow ‘not a merlin’ peril take a handsome lead as they squared away on the felixstowe shore. By the time Scammell / Read had removed the rudder, refloated and got back in Lewis / Hawkins had removed the laser attachment from the front of their ‘not a merlin’ and swiftly cruised past the merlin of Scammell / Read.

Scam Rule 3.

Keep Calm. otherwise known as forget what just happened and get back to the bit you are doing. You know, goldfish it. Dwelling on why you ran aground or why did thaat laser just sail into a starboard tack boat doesn’t help you sail fast. In fact running over and over can spoil the taste of the post race beer, much better to focus on trying to catch up.

What did the big tomato say to the little tomato? ketch up….

So Lewis / Hawkins and Scammell / Read set about trying to catch up the now distant fleet, being led by the ‘not a Merlin’ Robertson / Robertson who kept themselves out of trouble and out of the tide to round Kingsfleet without gybing, followed by John Egget, Max Evans, John Daniels, Tim ‘i’m a loud hailer’ O’leary, with Lewis / Hawkins rounding in the mix. Scammell / Read just managed to gybe round in front of the radial of Ed Swain.

A short tight fetch to Oystercatcher saw the two handers move into the first three places on the water, but with the tide helping on the upwind legs they were not stretching away from the lasers.

The beat from Oystercatcher to Quay saw Scammell / Read start to claw back a little on the ‘not a merlins’ could these three gain enough time on the singlehanders to take the handicap win? Lap 1 done around we go again…

The run to Kingsfleet saw the same tactics, , Robertson / Robertson led them running as deep as they could carry their asymmetric and Lewis / Hawkins the same, Scammell / Read headed for the felixstowe shore plus a few more metres just to be safe!

The places stayed the same, the last beat saw Scammell / Read and Lewis Hawkins close up to Robertson / Robertson but they had a healthy lead and crossed to take line honours, closely followed by Lewis / Hawkins then Scammell / Read.

Ed Swain in the laser radial took the handicap win, John Egget first laser.

Title : Cool Hand Luke….. or Civil war guns and Roses depending on your generation!