I've mentioned earlier how found the article in this month's Yachting World about sailing apps for the iPhone interesting - well it wasn't the only one.Having previously met the ex-Star sailing rug salesman it was interesting to read more about the class. And as was about to order the selected rug from the ex-Star sailing rug salesman it was helpful to be able to say something sensible about the class - such as the ability to tune the mast rake.
Or maybe not, because he immediately went into details of checkstays which woosh! went over my head.
But one bit did make sense: the three stages of Star sailing learning curve:
1) Sail as normal, ignoring all the additional tweaky bits. Go pretty well most of the time
2) Start playing with all the other controls around, forget to look around at the fleet, mess up positioning, get tuning all wrong, and end up slipping down the ladder.
3) Finally work out when to tune what when and have time to look around - hurrah!
Getting to step 3 seems a lot of work - particularly as it seems physically a very demanding boat.
Anyone who sails at that level that must be a pretty good sailor and deserved this little sale.
(groan, that was pretty bad wasn't it? To make up for it here's an interesting article in The Independent about Olympic Gold medal Star sailors Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson who have been doing rather well in Weymouth & Portland the last week)
