Jonesieblog

This season I’m crewing for John Hookway in his RS400 dinghy. This is what we might look like on a good day:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeiqXbx9E30[/youtube]

I only started sailing last year, so I have a lot to learn! I’ll try to share some of the thing I pick up along the way.

The first thing that has become painfully apparent to me is that you need to be fit – in particular to have good core strength, as you spend a lot of time hiking:

Photo by dinghyman

So far, it seems that my main tasks are:

• Acting as ballast – moving around to keep the boat level in the water.
• Tacking and jibing
• Keeping the jib trimmed correctly
• Hoisting and dropping the spinnaker, and flying it when it’s up
• Adjusting the outhaul – tight for upwind travel and slack for reaches.
• Keeping an eye open for stuff that the helm might have missed.

I’m not particularly good at any of these yet, but at least I’ve got some things to work on!  John is a patient teacher, and we will be winning by the time the Summer Series gets going

Stumble it!

I’ve just survived my first day back at school after returning from Canada at the weekend – no mean feat given the mess that my body-clock is in.

Whistler and Blackcomb are awesome – masses of fresh snow, and every kind of terrain, from wide open pisted cruisers to bowls full of untracked powder to groovy gladed runs though the trees that held onto their fresh snow for the whole fortnight.

The resort village was great too – loads of shopping, drinking and eating opportunities, all offered up by genuinely friendly staff (many of them aussies!).

Here are a few photos, which of course fail to capture the experience!

Stumble it!

I’m leaving on Saturday morning on a 26 hour coach journey to Italy, where I and the rest of our party of 116 (including my wife and son) will be enjoying a week of skiing and snowboarding.

This year I’m not in charge, which is a huge relief!  I’m planning to relax and enjoy the week in a way that I wasn’t able to last year – pressures of high office and all that.

I’ll be tweeting our progress here on a temporary account I’ve set up.  May also upload some photos to flickr with tag skitrip08 if I get the chance.

Stumble it!

On Friday my son and I took our snowboards out onto a wee sledging hill just beyond Gifford, and built a truly tiny kicker. We had a great time – here a video of a maths teacher in his 40’s being silly:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGiG_Z4xaIM[/youtube]

Stumble it!

One’s mind turns towards winter pursuits…

Stumble it!