The day I took out a Laser (but did not bring it back)

The best moment on Tuesday was before the sailing began. There were low clouds on Farleton Fell, and it did not get any better past Kendal, Ings, or Troutbeck. Approaching the top of Kirkstone, the valley looking down towards Ambleside was thick with cloud, but as soon as I started down towards Ullswater it was bright and clear, and Brother Water was lying in bright sunshine at the bottom of the pass. Beautiful.

The Laser is like a Topper Topaz, but faster, having a larger sail area. It certainly made for exciting sailing, and it was a good lively and enjoyable session.

I practised my man overboard procedure with the yellow buoy, but mainly stopped short, due to the boat being lighter and the wind being heavier than when we had been taught it.

There are many ways of capsizing a Laser, and I probably managed most of them. The wet suit proved very necessary.

One of the problems could be that the main sheet passes through a loop at the back of the boat (at the transom), and has a tendency to get snagged on the corner, meaning that you do do not have any control until it is unsnagged. This design makes it different from a Topaz in a couple of ways. First, on capsizing you have to duck under the loop of mainsheet to get to the back of the boat, and secondly you pull yourself up over the side when the boat is righted, not the back as on a Topaz.

The main reason for capsizing is the lightness of the boat and controls, and that it tips very easily. I got quite used to slipping down between the boat and the sail, and it was certainly light enough to right again very easily.

On one occasion I over-reacted to a gust and the boat tipped over towards me. I was pleased when the sail landed beside me rather than on top of me, but I had to lunge to grab hold of the sail before it drifted off beyond my reach. I guess that this was the time when the boat tipped over and soon as I had righted it. As one of the staff commented, it is probably easier to let it tip over like that than to turn it round in the water before righting it.

I returned the boat to the shore after the first capsize, as the rudder would have floated away had the tiller extension not got caught up in the loop of rope on the transom. Pete was able to bend the clip that keeps it in place. I returned it a second time, after I had made a grab for a piece of plastic at the bottom of the boat that came away in my hand. It was something to do with the self bailing mechanism, but it seemed none the worse without it. I returned a third time, to explain how I could not correct the tiller extension joint which had got twisted, but when I came to show what the problem was it had corrected itself.

The wind got stronger after a while, and by the end I was enjoying the sail, but I did not feel fully in control of the boat. Eventually I had no control at all, as the sail had come off the boom, and was flapping freely on the mast. A few attempts to reach hold of it persuaded me that I was not going to manage it without tipping over again, so I had to wait until the rescue boat to arrive, which was not immediate, as I was behind the near Island.

A couple of geordy men, both called Mike, picked me up in their Laser Fun, and we left the Laser upturned in the water. But by now the wind had grown stronger, and the three of us capsized, and were attempting to right it when the rescue boat arrived. Pete picked me up, and on the way picked up the crew from a trimaran, that had also gone over.

Retrieving the laser, the laser fun, and the trimaran kept most of the staff busy most of the afternoon. I did not feel quite so bad, as I was not the only one giving them extra work on a windy day.

Our RYA level 2 qualification teaches us to take out sailing dinghy in light winds, and how to cope with gusts. So here is what I gleaned about coping with heavier winds:-

1. Tighten the outhaul and the kicking strap. This is what would have prevented the sail coming off the boom.
2. Let the sheet out, so that you are wasting some of the wind. You may even go faster with less wind because you are heeling (leaning toward the sail) less.
3. When on a reach, let the sheet out before you start heeling. Once you are heeling there is a limit to how much further you can let the sail out before it dips in the water, so turning to wind is the only option left.
4. Use less centre-board. With less centreboard you will tend to drift leeward more, but heel less.
5. Less helpfully, sail a larger boat, have a heavier crew, and finally
6. Put in a reef and use a smaller sail area.