Flying Fifteen Northern Championships May 2004

This year, in May, the Flying Fifteen Northern Area Championships will be held at Kielder. So far I have had entries from Aberdeen to Liverpool and enquiries from as far afield as Cambridge.

While at the dinghy show I met ‘Fifteen’ sailors who expressed the intention of coming and as the event is a qualifier for the World Championships in New Zealand, we should see some good competitive sailing – which is what you always get at the FF meetings!

I hope that as many as possible of the Fifteens at Kielder will take the opportunity of competing. It is quite wrong to think that the ‘Champions’ have no interest in those further down the fleet, even a lot further down. I remember when Belinda and I went to the Nationals at Edinburgh, and we were at the very bottom of the pile then, being given a warm smile, a ‘Hi there!’ and welcome from one of the ‘Champions’. As I have said before, there is that wonderful expression of ‘ones own level of incompetence’. We are all amateurs, and, as in the old school report, ‘we could all do better’. The reality is that this is only true to certain extent, as most of us have a limit on the amount of time and money that we can, or are willing to put into any activity and this includes sailing. But what I have enjoyed through my sailing activities is that there are quite a lot of people who are equally incompetent. Now while I may not be able to win an open meeting I have usually had a jolly good race with similarly incompetent sailors, and I have tried to set myself reasonable goals of whom I can match and hopefully beat. It is the winning of these battles – usually mental ones – that are your reward, and from which you can get a sense of achievement. There is, as well, the excitement of sailing amongst new faces and being part of a bigger event.

It does help, too, if your boat is properly set up, or tuned. This is not a terrifying experience requiring some guru to draw in sharp breaths and look quizzically from you to your boat and then back at you while at the same time shaking his head with an air of incredulity. All it needs is a list of measurements – settings –, a decent tape measure and an understanding of where the bits on the boat are best fitted.

If a number of us got together we could have a ‘group session’ and sort out a number of boats in a day. This sort of sounds like having what people now call a bonding session, but I think that we can stick with group session! I do like to race on the Sundays and so would prefer to do this on a Saturday, but give me a ring and lets see what could be organized. If you don’t ring me I will be in touch with you. Is that a threat or a promise?!

Setting your boat up properly should also make the boat easier to sail, more fun for you.

LOOKING FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU. 

Giles Passmore

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