Contiunation from yesterday. Shortly after commissioning Knot Again the Admiral and I started cruising.  Knot Again is a C&C 35 MK III, a great racer cruiser.  When we cruise with the many cruisers of our club, we are often the first boat in port and have a head start on sundowners and party planing.  Chardonnay time is a real favorite aboard our boat. Knot Again is a stable, fast, roomy and well-found vessel. She has gotten us through some very uncomfortable experiences, which in hindsight may have been hurled at us by Poseidon and his pal, Aoleus. (see Wind; Lats and Atts issue 97, June 2008).  read more »

Posted by: venus46  read more »

I get the monster hump when people criticise Cowes Week because first and foremost I believe that Stuart Quarrie (Cowes Week Director) is totally beyond reproach and has steered the regatta to the very top. I've been a journalist there for years as well as a competitor since before I can remember and I can say, hand on heart, that last year I had the time of my life sailing in lowly Class 9 IRC in my H-Boat. Sure we didn't win but we won one race and had a great week on the water...all the boxes were ticked in my book and the race management was first class - period.  read more »

Withdrawn from paddling in a fresh breeze, I spent a Sunday, smoldering in intolerable gloom, entertaining my fastidious curiosity in the water line symbols marked amidships on each side of ships that show the limitations on the draught to which them may be loaded
We had a brief allusion to these water line marks in Shipping Law but as much as the subject was brushed past me, I was little surprised as they are significant to safety, to find a couple of international conventions and a flurry of amendments.
From the first official loading regulations in the island kingdom of Crete in 2,500 BC when vessels were required to pass loading and maintenance inspections to the laws of the Venetian Republic in the middle ages, that required vessels to be loaded to a maximum depth indicated by a fixed line marked on the side of the hull, it was in the 19th century when loading recommendations were introduced by London-based Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping in 1835. Lloyd’s Register recommended freeboards as a function of the depth of the hold - three inches per foot of depth -, and these recommendations became known as “Lloyd’s Rule”.  read more »