Work Experience at Crewsaver

I'm back in Cornwall now after venturing to Gosport for work experience at Crewsaver! http://www.crewsaver.co.uk/ I was only there for 2 and a half weeks due to starting back at uni this Monday coming. It was an interesting experience, and learnt a lot about how the industry works. I don't think they had really thought of what to give me to do so they just told me to design a dinghy sailing range. It was really hard trying to remember how to use a Microsoft computer as apposed to a Mac. I was also shocked to find out that they used Core draw and not Illustrator (even though they did have it on their computers!), which uni has taught us and told us everyone in the industry uses! I tried to design the best i could in the short time i was there, not sure what they thought of it though as nothing much was said! I just hope i gave them something worthwhile! I was also pleasantly surprised to see that some things are still made in the UK! Although most of their stuff is made abroad like everyone else, their life jackets are still made in the Gosport factory. Below are some pictures of bits and bobs at Crewsaver.

The factory where the life jackets are made!

Pressure testing tank. Fore some reason i was fascinated by this!

The view from the design office, one of those masts is my dads boat! :D

The amazing machine that draws your patterns that you create on the computer! I so wish uni had one!!!

Dartmouth week

Well I am shattered!!! I went to Dartmouth to join the Demolition team for Dartmouth week which started on the 25th. The Demo team were already pretty shattered due to them having just done Torbay week and the winds had been mental but came away with a brilliant 4th place! The weather has pretty windy when I arrived but glorious sunshine! The week was defiantly eventful with us protesting the entire IRC 4 fleet on day 2 because no-one but us had read the race instruction amendments meaning we were the only ones to sail the right course (which happened to be longer)! The same thing nearly happened the next day but other boats decided it was probably best to follow us as we could obviously read!!! all that was except Per Elisa and King One who decided to have some fun getting tangled up in the Farr 45's fleet, which resulted in them both sailing a long way off the course!!! The end of the week became insanely windy, but thankfully Demolition loves it windy and she powered through the fleet on the last day while Per Elisa struggled and others broke! Rounding off the regatta with another 1st place! Over all results were Peanut (an Impalla with a bandit of a handicap!) coming 1st, King One (an Irish Half Tonner with a brilliant crew) coming 2nd, then us on Demolition coming 3rd just in front of Per Elisa who actually ended the regatta with the same points as us but we luckily had that last day 1st to put us narrowly in front.

The Beautiful Demolition!

I was also very excited when i arrived to be handed our new crew T-Shirts!!! Us girlies had pink shirts with grey writing and the guys had grey shirts with pink writing! It looked well cool!! although we wanted the guys grey t-shirts and the guys wanted our pink t-shirts!!! (we didnt end up swapping tho!)

Best crew shirt I've had yet!!

Falmouth Week

Well Falmouth week has just finished and i had a wicked time! I had never done it before because it usually clashed with Cowes week or I was working. I was sailing on Demolition one of the half toners in Falmouth, who i sail with normally every week from RCYC. We had a great week with a nice bit of sunshine thrown in. We were in IRC 2 Bay Fleet and came 3rd overall with Per Elisa (another Falmouth half toner that we have some friendly banter with!) coming 2nd! However incorporated into the 1st 5 days of  Falmouth week was the IRC Championship where we did much better than we expected by coming 2nd, narrowly beating Per Elisa who came 3rd. Sadly I can't find any pictures of us racing but I'm sure some will appear soon!

Photo's from Carnac

First start of the worlds

Steve and Chris, absolutely steaming along upwind

Elliot and Jane, just round the windward mark

Barry and Al looking pretty chilled going downwind

Worlds prize giving. As you can see it was a 1, 2 for Australia but at least a 3rd from Britain.

For some proper photography by a real sailing photographer visit http://fotoboat.thirdlight.com/gallery.tlx?containerid=141776 these photo's are taken by my friend Tom Gruitt, he's a top photographer!! also photographs for yachts and yachting! if you fancy also his personal website: http://www.tom-gruitt.co.uk/

The Results from the B14 worlds 2010

Its the end of a mixed week! we've had sunshine, rain, gale force winds and mammoth waves!! and because of this team Kernow didn't do too great due to not going out the last 2 days through fear of breaking the boats (many that did go out indeed limped back with broken rigs, wings, boats and crews!!) to see a full write up and results go to Yachts and Yachting website

I did at least manage to get out on the press boat one day, pics to follow!

Final results Europeans 2010

Well the European Championships are over and now its the lay day! Its not been to bad for Team Kernow. Chris and Steve came 20th over all, Elliot and Jane came 25th and Barry and Al came 28th. these results may not seem grate but if u take out the Aussies from these results (as they technically don't count, not being European and all!!) then Chris and Steve were 14th, Elliot and Jane were 18th and Barry and Al were 21st! great effort!!

sadly sure to some strong winds and a few nasty waves, there are some repairs currently going on here in the dinghy park:




amazing what u can do with a hammer and some epoxy!!

B14's in Carnac

Well its that time of year again where the B14's take over the dinghy park at Yacht Club de Carnac, in france. The Europeans start on wed (2 days time) and end on sat, with a days break before the world championship starts on the mon for five days!! Team Kernow are here and the 3 boats are currently out on the water for a practice session, there are 8 french boats taking part, about 10 Australian boats have made the epic trip here to compete and the other 20-30 boats are British competitors.

There is a cracking breeze here and beautiful sunshine so looks like it could be a fantastic 2 weeks! I will be getting snap happy during the time here and hope to get some pics up soon, along with results!