In The Beginning - Part 3 (JohnB)
or perhaps: The End Of The Beginning
By teatime we were overrun with Americans, well, half a dozen or so of them anyway. After all the hand shaking and greetings were over we repaired to a tent to enjoy a convivial half hour before dinner. Our accommodation was in a row of bell tents and we ate in the dining room at Lakeside's South Camp on the southern end of Windermere. The rest of the OCSG were camped in the next field.
The following morning was blowing hard but we were able to get the first race in the series of seven away just after eleven.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday was hard work for all the sailors, all thirty-five of us, and by the last race we were still holding our breath as to the outcome of it all. It had been nip and tuck all the way and now it came down to the last race. The best of the American sailors got over the line too soon and had to do a three sixty and return behind the line. This could be our chance! The wind began to fall away and got lighter and lighter. As our boat trickled ever closer to the finishing line, the American boat seemed to be boiling along in pursuit, but the line was approaching. Even in those last few minutes it still seemed like touch and go but we did it, or at least DaveS did it.
There is no doubt that that meeting boosted the morale of the group. There was a lot of activity around that time; the Four Nations Cup that used to be raced for on Loch Lomond, annual trips to Holland to race with the Dutch, as well as a number of individual journeys of exploration to Norway and Sweden. The joint was fair jumpin' for a few years, but as with all things eventually the enthusiasm began to wane and life continued in a more even tenor.
Looking back over the years, one thing I have become convinced of is the need for continual development. I have often argued for this in the past but now I am more convinced than ever. The sailing world is littered with redundant class boats, good ones too, that did not change and simply got left behind when the world around them changed. After all, as Darwin pointed out, survival means change - evolution. If our little boats are going to be found in other than the dark corners of dusty barns in future years then we have to allow them to develop; more, we have to encourage development. It is these changes that help lend vitality and interest to the class.
One of the blessings of our boats is their small scale. One is able to undertake quite major developments for a couple of hundred pounds, while the majority will be a good deal less. One obvious area of interest would be the sliding seat. The 'old boys' at the beginning of the twentieth century were not allowed to use them for racing but almost all chose them for cruising. A simple experiment could be to clamp a board across the gunn'ls that overhung them by perhaps twelve or eighteen inches and see how much difference it made. Or a nicely shaped batten glued to the
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