Sailing a Nimrod with Tom

It is always good to call in at Glenridding, not only because Steve makes coffee almost as good as Costa do, but you also meet some great people.
Tom was not sailing on Saturday, as he does not like the rain, in fact when sailing his Nimrod he does not get wet at all.  No wet suit, no capsizing, such are the joys of sailing a boat with a keel.  What is great about the Nimrod, is that it is fast and handles more like a dinghy.
Sailing on Sunday looked unlikely, as there was thick fog at Kendal, all the way up to Kirkstone, but it seemed to change at the top, becoming cloud rather than fog. Then a quarter of a mile past the top there was .. sunshine.
Tom is a retired teacher, and he was soon instructing me on how to handle things when I fumbled with the sheet and tiller extension when going about; he demonstrated turning the boat without using the rudder; and was teaching me a thing or two about sailing up wind.
There are three ways of flattening a boat when it is healing (leaning over), and they are not interchangeable in Tom's book. We had learnt to continually test how close we could sail to the wind, but he put a different gloss on it. First of all, you lean out to reduce the heal, and when it gets too much you turn into the wind, the third option, loosing the main sheet, he never does, in fact he keeps it cleated. Sure you lose some speed as you turn into the wind, but what you lose in speed you gain in direction by getting up wind further.
I found not loosing the mainsail quite hard, both from a panic point of view, and because it tugged quite hard, with only one pulley. Tom likes to feel the responsiveness at low wind speeds, and is happier using a cleat.  By contrast the rudder was not pulling away from you sailing upwind, as Tom has leaned the mast forward slightly, to lessen the pull towards the wind from the mainsail.

So, what is a Nimrod?  A Westerley Nimrod 18, is a small yaught, eighteen feet long, a small cabin, and a retractable keel.
You can stand in front of the cabin, and there is a railing, but there is no railing at the back, you are able to lean out just as much as any dinghy.   The cabin is quite small, plenty of space for storage and space to sleep, if you really have to.  The keel is raised and lowered by a hand winch, so that the boat is very stable when it is down, and quite tippy when it is up.  The boat launches from a normal trolley, and sits low, like a dinghy when on shore, but it still weighs half a ton so you need a tow to launch and recover. The hull is quite flat, so that the boat can be made to plane like a speed boat, which adds to the excitement, although we did not quite manage it.
Tom chose it because it gives him all the excitement of dinghy sailing, with the bonus of not getting wet. It extends the season, sailing when it is too cold to risk capsizing, and he has even sailed it in gales off Whitby.
Thanks Tom, for a great day.