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Sailing and WindsurfingSailing at Queen Mary Reservoir - 6 February 2000Tristan wants to learn to race, so decided that the time has come to start learning to sail! On Sunday he arranged for a couple of hours in a Laser Pico dinghy. I did no think that there would be any wind, but when we got there were pleased by the wind due to the additional hight of the reservoir. A couple of fun hours were spent on the water with the wind gusting (as it always does on a pond) at the upper force 4 strength. Excellent fun and teaches you control quickly. The first hour was spent tacking and reaching back and forwards. It took a while to get the sails set correctly. First I had far too little and really had problems going upwind. I put out all of my sail and then found it very interesting when the gusts came. After about an hour I decided to introduce gibing. This is the bit where the sail powes up and the boat goes unstable during the couple of seconds of he turn. Always a good test of skill and how quickly you can move around the deck. I do not know whether it was due to excellent teaching, or the fact the the water was freezing, but Tris managed all the gybes without getting wet! After the sailing I got chatting to Charles. He runs the Queen Mary sailing club and was out in Barbados teaching with me. Good to see him again and I gave him my details in case he needs a level 3 Windsurf instructor. Then on the way out to the car bumped into Sue, a great windsurfing girl that I shared a car with when I went to Tarifa in Spain. It’s a small world in windsurfing!
Sunsail Turkey 1999
A wonderful holiday split between Perili and Farmess. We started off in PeriliPerili was the club that I worked at in 1998 where the Meltemi wind blows force 6. Excellent again this year.
We then went onto FarmessWhere the conditions were more suitable for Sarah to learn. The real motive for going there was that most of the guys from Perili were working there this season.
Yachting in Greece 1997From a great holiday that I had in Greece in October 1997 with my then girlfriend Fi.Inspired by this I then decided to go and train as a windsurf instructor and then went to work for Sunsail in Turkey. These were taken on one of those little disposable cameras. I cannot remember which make it was, but the picture quality is not as good as the Kodac disposables IMHO.
Fi and me, Self portrait
Parga in the early evening
Fi at the helm
How far can you lean the boat over ?
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