Unclear intentions

[marisca]

Saturday in Oban. The Scottish Islands Peaks Race runners were finished their wee jaunt round Oban, had been wheeched out to their boats and the fleet of around 50 boats were heading out the north entrance in a flukey, swinging, mostly head wind. It is at that point that Pharos decides to leave and starts off with a reasonably polite 5 hoots though what was "unclear" about the intentions of the boats in front of her was beyond me. Naturally Pharos was ignored and anyway what exactly were the scattered boats supposed to do to get out of her way without running aground or starting their engines? Pharos's hoots got longer and possibly louder.

Now avoiding Calmac ferries is expected as they perform their vital task of not quite running to timetable but surely the blown lightbulb or whatever it was could have waited for a few minutes until the yachts were clear? That she then seemed to do little but motor gently up the Sound of Mull without any sign of haste makes me wonder.

2nd in Class 3 (would have been 1st if the wind had only lasted 15 minutes longer) - thank you for asking.

[Telo]

- thank you for asking.

No problem.

[Fingal]

How did Solpieter do? I am assuming, having heard nothing from 1st mate Cameron, probably not brilliantly?

[marisca]

I am led to believe a toilet malfunction was involved in their retirement - they did have 2 young ladies on board who might have been adverse to a bucket and chuck-it regime. Apparently the highlight of their weekend was getting past Marisca in the Sound of Mull, a situation quickly remedied by launching the spinnaker.

[ash]

2nd in Class 3 (would have been 1st if the wind had only lasted 15 minutes longer) - thank you for asking.

I think that I knew this from reading a post somewhere else, but don't recall where! So you will be fitting rowlocks and shipping aboard oars for next year? Could you not fit a log with a really big paddlewheel and 'accidently' reverse the power? or would that be ungentlemanly?

Ash - the cruiser.

[marisca]

I suspect that even if we had fitted oars we would still have lost a rowing race against the much lighter Impala. I have tried using sweeps from an eight but the boat is really not the right shape. Towing with the dinghy allied with paddles may be the way to go but I'm not sure that I care that much about winning ................ who do I think I'm kidding?

[MrMcP]

When it came to rowing we had slightly longer oars (not full sweeps) either at midships or on the aft quarters, which could get us up to some form of movement. When we tried towing from a dinghy it was pretty inefficient - the dinghy didn't have enough stability to effectively use the pull on the boat - the warp would tighten, pull the dinghy backwards rather than the boat forwards, and skitter around. We then moved the dinghy to the stern and lashed the bow directly to the stern so there was no lost contact. Pushing was way more effective than pulling. With dinghy + two oars on boat we could get to around 2 - 2.5kts.