Tag Archives: london model yacht radio sailing club

Do You Get Cold When Racing at This Time of Year?

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Do you find it a bit nippy in the colder months, striding up and down the foreshore?? Hanging around for start sequences?? Especially on the breezy days?

I must admit, in my first winter IOM series, it got seriously cold, and I got seriously cold… then the enjoyment declined. The way to deal with this was shown to me by a great friend at Chipstead RSC. … A battery heated gilet….

I was incredulous at first… but, honestly, it was a total revelation. Amazing. For a start, the battery lasts about four hours, so you get protection for just the right amount of time to cover a radio sailing session.

Although I call it a gilet, you wear it under your top layers, so you want to read all the customer reviews about garment sizing (important). I wear mine on top of a cotton T-shirt, but under everything else.

If you look on Amazon there are simply loads of designs to choose from. They all seem to have heated panels in different places and I especially wanted heated lower back panels. You just choose which suits you best. I think on mine, additionally the user can also select back/front/both for heating zones… and high/medium/low heat as well. Great!

The second revelation was the price. On Amazon it was about £50. Ridiculous! The rechargeable (on USB cable) battery, which is about the size of an iPhone, costs £20 extra. You just pop it in a pocket inside the gilet.

Blimey that’s less than a set of thermals from Musto or Rooster. I’m in the second winter now and it’s still working! I’m wondering about adding a second battery for longer days.

LT at Datchet is also trialling one this winter. Results are good, I believe. I’m surprised that RW (our “Mr Style”) hasn’t got one yet.

Great Christmas present and you get more races in!

These products come and go on Amazon, but this was the search term I used….

Vapesoon Heated Vest Heating Jacket with 3 Adjustable Temperature Electric USB Rechargeable Winter Thermal Vest Warm for Outdoor Camping Riding Hiking (Battery Pack Not Included)

Datchet – Overall Results for 2023!! Plus the John Shorrock Memorial Trophy for One Metres !!

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After a brilliant year at Datchet, the overall results are in!! Prizegiving this weekend !!

The Major News is that the winner of the John Shorrock Memorial Trophy for IOM in 2023 is our super Racing Secretary, Hugh McAdoo ! Hugh does an amazing job of running our race programme, and it’s amazing that he goes about winning most of the races at the same time! An amazingly successful year for Hugh – well done !!

The top three for IOM for the entire year are:-

1 Hugh McAdoo

2 Peter Haskell

3 Phil Holliday

The top three for Marblehead are

1 High McAdoo

2 Phil Holliday

3 Rohan Williams (hurrah Rohan!!)

The top three for Ten Raters are:-

1 Phil Holliday

2 Richard Uttley

3 Hugh McAdoo

For the detail score sheets, please click on the link below….

Click to access dwrsc-overall-results-all-classes-for-2023-.pdf

How They Weigh a One Metre ?

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When you come into Radio Sailing, you hear a lot about weights. It’s a hot topic, just like it is in dinghy and keelboat racing.

As an aside : when I ordered a new Dragon keelboat, I remember going to the builder (who had lots of Olympic golds, world titles and the rest of it) and asking what weight he thought the boat would come out at. He said 1700kg is the rule. I naturally asked, “Yes, but what weight do you think you can build mine to?”… “1700kg” came the reply. And he did. Amazing.

So in at least One Metres and Marbleheads, owners and builders have the same keen interest in weights as my Dragon Builder.

I was keen to see my new IOM weighed. The photo above shows the setup. A digital scale with fine graduations plus a wooden IOM standing bracket. Easy enough to see how the Measurer does his job now.

In fact, here is my boat being weighed. Note hatches and onboard battery are inside the weight limit.

Thinking of my Dragon story above, I thought you’d be interested to see how accurate my IOM builder was. “He’s 21Gms over!”, you proclaim !!

Well, I thought that too, so I asked him. I take it that lots of people do. I received a well practiced answer. He says that they target 20gms over because they find that scales around championships do vary. So if you weigh in at a Championship and it looks like you are 20gms over, you can always pop the corrector out.

OK – so he was 1gram over !!….