Sometimes, I think my brain is really slow….

I have a couple of aluminium type stands in the house, and I’m hoping for another one quite soon. You know, nice clean aluminium legs with straps for the boat hull to sit in. You see a lot of them around.

Then I was down at my Wednesday club and decided to help a pal who was moving from car to shore for the race session. It’s about a 200 yard walk. You have to carry your transmitter (round your neck), the boat, maybe your rig bag, and the stand… plus in his case a chair to sit upon during racing. It’s a major feat, let me tell you. My friend left me carry his easy chair.

Then it occurred to me that on that IOM race day, nobody was using an aluminium stand. All the competitors had wooden stands, some of them just fantastic pieces of beautiful joinery in their own right. Gorgeous.

It was only then that it occurred to me was was really going on. On all these stands there was (i) an integrated carrying handle – see the black bar in the photo above (ii) the boat could be strapped securely to the stand. ….. When walking from the car park to the shore, you need one less arm. You simply pick up the stand by the handle and the boat gets a safe free ride.

There were interesting variations in keel supports (see above) ranging from velcro straps or bungee cords, or in one case a U-shaped keel support which would have its merits.

We have published links elsewhere on this website (see the Category list and select “Stands”) with plans for wooden IOM stands like this.

Plans to Make a Wooden IOM Stand

When the weather warms up, I might have a go.

So the answer to “What type of Stand do I need?’, might just be, “Where Do You Park?”