Tuesday, 27 May 2014

Mill Pond Training

The bank holiday rain had started to clear by mid morning on Saturday so we went over to Emsworth for a walk and early lunch. In the mill pond the youngsters presumably from Emsworth Slipper SC and apologies if they were from Emsworth SC, were out in their Opi's.


It's a great and safe place for training with an almost constant depth the instructors can wade out to give instruction or act as the windward mark.


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8 comments:

  1. Tillerman28 May 2014 at 15:11

    What a brilliant idea to use an instructor as a windward mark. In fact why stop there? Use a coach/instructor for every mark on the race course. Give them VHF radios and GPS and then if you want to move a mark for any reason you just tell them to swim over to the new position. And instead of messing up the races by zooming around in their mommy boats they would be in perfect positions to observe their students and give feedback after racing. Of course occasionally boats would hit the "marks" but if we made the coaches wear helmets and body armor there probably wouldn't be too many serious injuries.

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  2. Patrick Hay28 May 2014 at 20:33

    I wouldn't have liked to have been the windward mark in most of the races I took part in as a novice dinghy sailor.

    Of course, in those days you had to retire if you hit a mark. Nowadays the kids just spin round in a penalty turn before racing in to hit the mark again.

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  3. Tillerman28 May 2014 at 20:43

    Maybe Onne van der Wal would volunteer to be the gybe mark?

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  4. Steve-the-Wargamer29 May 2014 at 13:18

    Over 40 years ago I did my first solo sail in an Opi on (and in) that very Mill Pond - I can remember it to this day....

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  5. Bursledon Blogger29 May 2014 at 13:21

    Would be an interesting application for a CRB check - "Racing buoy"

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  6. my2fish29 May 2014 at 15:29

    Wow, very cool to have that option for the instructors to be out in the water near the students!

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  7. Steve-the-Wargamer29 May 2014 at 16:47

    My2fish - one of the other abiding memories from way back then, was the smell from the mud, so maybe not so cool for the instructors..... :o)

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  8. my2fish29 May 2014 at 17:08

    Steve, valid point. I was thinking of the students maybe getting better on-the-water tip!

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