Blowing away the midwinter blues...

I went round to see a neighbour on Saturday. I took my Rhum dinghy plans and the 1:10 model that I've made of the hull. He has a Sunburst dinghy and I wanted to check dimensions of his side seats to see if a similar layout was possible in the Rhum. It turns out that the slightly stretched version I intend to build will be identical in length and beam to the Sunburst. Not only is this good news for the layout of seats, it also means that I can potentially buy of-the-shelf spars and sails for the Rhum rather than get a custom set made, possible saving a few dollars along the way.

While I was round, Daniel invited me out on his big boat for a race the next day. So Mid-winter's day I was on a 33' racing/cruising yacht reaching at 8.5 knots in a 20 knot southerly blow around Auckland's harbour. There were only 2 boats in our none-spinnaker class, but we won on the line and on handicap. We also beat 3 spinnaker boats over the line, and they had a 5 minute advantage at the start. It was a beautiful clear and crisp day, and putting up with the cold was well worth it for a great day out on the water.