FLYING DUTCHMAN SAILING FOR THE POOR OF THE PARISH

Cathy and I have been seriously involved in this fantastic class now for three years, although there have been connections for over 15 years. This was initially due to David Wilkins, who led me into this addictive habit by giving me, Cathy, and a yob named Gibbo, poor students all, the use of IR 3 back in the early - mid 80s, for the price of the insurance, and replacing anything we pulled off the poor old boat. Whatever happened to Gibbo and IR 3? but more important, was this remarkably kind gesture by David Wilkins something other FD owners might consider in the future?

After first rioting my way through the Osprey fleet with Oscar Chess, before enjoying, if thats not too broad a use of the term, Hornet racing with Cathy, and other more disposable and waterproof crews, especially David Preece who never wanted to be disposed of and was always incredibly waterproof, I went to the 1995 Show with the definate aim of seeing how we could start to play FDs too. We had really enjoyed the experience of attending the 1991 Europeans at Abersoch with K351 which we bought for £500 and sold for the same amount at the end of the season to allow my dreams of Hornet grandeur to continue with new sails. ("shame" said Cathy) I knew that FD sailing would be a different affair to what I was used to. I am a small but pefectly formed person, I was intending to go sailing with Cathy, who is just perfectly formed, in a boat widely believed to be the sole perserve of attack helicopter pilots and albino Masai warriors of incredible wealth and fitness. Therefore, because we didn’t aim to win the championships in a force six week, there was no need for a new Mader, or any Mader at all.

The budget was about £1000, and we very quickly bought IR 4, a 1979 Bob Hoare wooden hull fitted out by Jo Richards for David Wilkins, for £850 including a simple combi trailer with industrial standard cradles, a tatty cover, and a selection of sails well into their late middle age, the exact number of which is still open to debate. If you buy me a drink I’ll tell you all about it. We bought this boat because it was wooden, had nearly gone to the Olympics, had a beautifully curving central spine, had a fully raking rig, it was cheap, it was immediately available, but most of all because it was registered in Malahide rather than Hampshire.

Over a year it costs us far less to own and use than the value we place on the pleasure we get from it. IFDCO costs £50, me as full international member, and Cathy as crew, and insurance is now about £90. Club costs are the same as for a dinghy sailor in any other class. We try and minimise spending on gear, to enjoy using the savings finding out together what sunset in an Austrian valley or daybreak on the land over the Spanish countryside looks like. The average annual sail spend has been less than £150, on good quality second hand sails which once fell like manna from the garages of one time olympic hopefuls, and will trickle in future from the good and the great of the class, but we still have buckets of power to spare most of the time. The bits from the chandlery for general maintainance light up in red on the credit card bill, but I don’t believe there is a great cost difference in terms of ‘fiddling about money’ between us keeping the mast in the boat and those taking it seriously. No major components have failed or look too scary to continue using yet, and when they do - the mast is nearly twenty years old - we will be searching in the back gardens and sheds of southern England for replacements rather than in the specialist dinghy catalogues. The only big thing we needed to buy new has been a cover, which was rather a surprise at £150. (rudderstock - "I think the spare one from my old fireball is in the garage. Yours for a tenner") So far, one repaint job has been done in three winters, and won’t be repeated this year, maybe needed next, probably costing another £100, by the time you count sanding discs and thinners.

The aspect of our sailing that costs us the most is the one we get the most pleasure from. We are not ‘New age travellers’ but ‘Old style dinghy sailors’. I slept out on beaches, in busstops and under Ospreys during the glory days (when I was young enough to survive it). I’m lucky now because I have someone to travel to sailing with, and our hotel Volkswagen to do it in. You don’t think what twenty miles to the four star gallon involves financially when it gives you the chance to turn a national training centre into a bedouin encampment for a week. There is nothing better than the first bars of a tape starting as we leave the boatpark, pass the playground and the pub, and set out again. We go away sailing once every four or five weeks over the season, either locally - all of North Wales - or ‘out of area’, which is anything involving a motorway. The local regatta scene gives splendid choices of sea or lake sailing, and entry fees are in a timewarp. I think a weekend at Bala must cost around £20-30 - in terms of the money we wouldn’t spend if we decided not to go to the event. The 600 mile return trip to the South Coast costs £80-90 before I start winding up the person taking entries, and we just can’t be bothered most of the time, especially if the tide is right for lunch down at the Mermaid. We don’t think about the cost of Eurotravel much, because the quality of the experiences we have had while doing it has just been so overwhelmingly good.

We definately feel we have found a form of FD sailing which provides a ridiculously large amount of fun for a very modest outlay. Last year we seriously considered for several seconds the idea of one of the ‘four thousand pounders’ on sale at the end of the season.

For:      less breakable (well maybe) stiff, down to weight, shiny, loads more confusing sails, umm, thats it.

Against:      what use is a fixed rudder and genoa lifters when you might perhaps just possibly sometime need a boat you can to sail to Caernarfon for an ice cream.

Thats all there is to say really.