River Sailing

Henley SC is a very friendly club and on a nice stretch of the river, so give it a go.

And yes, river sailing is fun (.... but you would expect me to say that).

I think all the items you mention make it challenging rather than frustrating.....there will always be some patterns to pick up in the apparent randomness of those things, over time.

Our neighbouring river club brought it's oppie fleet over for the day yesterday, so they could experience 'open water sailing'.  We are a kilometre square gravel pit.  Poor little things were a bit thrown by not having banks to determine when they should tack.

River sailing:

1976,  13yrs old. Mangy old Ent roll tacking, chasing convoys of motor cruisers and catching their wash. No wind, paddling home or swimming home towing the boat.

Getting sworn at and having bait thrown at me by danglers.

Almost getting rammed by rowing eights, manned by gorillas who are being screamed at by chimps and chased by loud blokes in tweed jackets in catamarran power boats.

Sudden wind fluctuations as it eddies between trees, and the lovely sound of a whole line of Ents, Merlins, Solos and OKs tied up to the landing stage just before the afternoon race.

Cream teas on the lawn and a short bike ride home.

I had a lot of fun and learnt a lot at my local club on the Thames, so it's definitely worth doing.

Later I moved to one of those concrete puddles in the Thames valley. Yes it was great to blast in my IC, but a concrete wall is a concrete wall and it even had danglers, so got bored with running around in circles and left sailing for a few years.

Now I sail on a river in the SW, it's almost the same, ferries, moored yachts, massive wind shifts, seals and salmon fishermen, but the danglers are nice to me and the rowing sculls and 4s are polite!

I guess some of us go back to what we enjoyed in our youth. Familiarity means a lot.

I have sailed at a small River club for the best part of 30 years now.  Why?  well simple really.  Its local and i have always been a member (farther is an old commodore)  I will always join no matter what happens with work, relocation etc.  I dont sail there much anymore, mainly because i prefered faster boats, but the attraction of a midweek adventure with my daughter is much more appealing than the bore of a midweek reach on a gravel pit.  We can sail for about 7 miles in one direction and can tak in pubs and some beautiful wildlife.  We can sail the graduate into a bank and have a picnic!  Furthermore without even dropping the mast and moving location we can have some very close and tactical racing.  I both love sailing on the river and hate it in the same breath!  Forget screaming reaches, it will never happen, you will go mad calling for water or from trying to understand why someone 4ft away from you has just picked up a gust.

Originally posted by iGRF Something I've always wanted to retire to, sailing a river, all those descriptions above, sound idyllic, I like sailing pretty much everywhere, I love our small lake as much as I love sailing the sea, but for different reasons, we have no rivers near here, but we do have a long term plan to maybe move up to the broads, some excellent river sailing up there.

Edited by kneewrecker - 01 Aug 14 at 11:50am