Musto Skiff Class Training Event at Rutland Sailing Club

Richard and Kit Stenhouse Musto Skiff training event at Rutland © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

Richard and Kit Stenhouse Musto Skiff training event at Rutland © Tim Olin / www.olinphoto.co.uk

Richard and Kit Stenhouse use their considerable influence to line up perfect weather

Thanks to Sten and Kit again for some great sailing again, they must have a good standing with the wind gods as we had a perfect day for the time of year November / December. With sunshine and the perfect wind for the level of training required they did the normal thing of providing the Sten and Kit format of fun and learning like they have done for years now.

The sailors started with a bit too much of a social meeting in the boat park this might have been because of the sunshine and us happy sailors having a chat, this lead to a slightly delayed start and a few missing the briefing, this is a down side to training at this time of year with the short time and short daylight hours.

The very short windward / leeward course set on the first training format soon lead to us all sailing very poorly and everyone said they were too hot with some having to take layers off in the sunshine with all the quick fire tacks, drops, tacks and gybes in a short space of time.

For myself I was sailing like a first year MPS sailor on that short course and made too many mistakes very quickly one after another.

After the starting practice we had lunch and a return to five boat training with the group split into different groups of 5, with three groups Sten spent his time in his boat moving between the groups with Kit helping as well and the rib taking video at the same time, as with most of the training day it how you act as a team that makes a good day and group 1 did manage to five boat train but this is harder to do than three boat training as the wind seams to split the group quite quickly in the shifts.

We did some short racing and starts on a short start line that showed who had been practicing and the ones like myself just blasting around on windy days, Dan mps200 showed use how to do it as he had just done some practice up north and was in Stens normal position in 3 seconds to go. One to watch, Dan was sitting with his sail inverted (battens backed), you can use full rudder as a brake to prevent forward movement was one tip.

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If you cant make the training events be sure to have a copy of Richard and Kit's K16 training DVD - A great stocking filler.