Hunts Sailing Club has a strong Solo fleet and we regularly get 10+ boats on the water with some good competitive, and at times, fierce racing, all good preparation for the open circuit. As for next season, my first target is to get to 2026, always a good start. I shall fill my calendar on the kitchen wall with all the opens I hope to get to, usually only manage about a third of them though due to age & increasing decrepitude! I would very much like to do a Nationals but due to a back problem the boat movement on the sea makes it just too uncomfortable. Sadly I need to stick to ponds. Might try to get to Salcombe though as a compromise, need to get my head around that tidal stu ff and where and when to cross from one part of the estuary to another, I’ve never got the hang of it. And finally, my boat is blue - having had several ‘white’ Winders I really wanted something di ff erent. It does come with a handicap in that I’m easy to spot on the line as my recent trip to Northampton demonstrated but really that was my incompetence and not the boat colour. I look at other fleets, Merlins & Scorpions, and it’s great to see such a range of colours on show - we need more of this in the Solo fleet, be brave and stand out. Simon Maskell 6037 Von Sheep, (Gel colour: Pacific Blue - 4529… just saying), now over to brother Mark.
Mark Maskell We used to race together in the Fireball and had a great few years together especially when the winds were lighter the highlights of which were race wins in the Worlds in Italy at lake Bracciano ( Now that’s a place we should go to for the Nations Cup ) and the Europeans in the Shetland Islands. As a team we just seemed to work well together and there was always banter in the boat about my hanging back at the starts, (I just wanted to avoid all the OCS !) My first experience of Solo sailing was racing at my then home club of Fishers Green in my father Solo, No 4205, built by John Rutherford of Danbury, it was a great boat, well balanced and one of the quickest in the fleet at that time, looking up the solo register, I see its still based at Fishers Green and if I decide to go down the classic route that’s one I would want to buy.
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