Everyone loves a happy customer and its even better when the sun shines! Here’s a picture we were sent by a customer from Portsmouth who had a set of matt grey hull and deck stickers last week.

He’s put them on a new white replacement hull and we reckon that they look pretty cool, especially with the sail number on the deck sticker.

A good looking boat! Photo by Clive C.

Does your DF65 deserve a revamp, get yourself a set of our hull and deck sticker sets, they’re cheap as chips and ever so easy to apply…go on you know you want some!

So, as many of you will know I haven’t had the best of years and as a consequence I’m now trying to cram a years worth of sailing into 4 months. I have managed to get a spot at the UK IOM Nationals taking place in a week or two at Lincoln MYC which looks like being a great event with 84 people entered including a whole heap of World and National Champions, so plenty of competition to go at!

I, on the other hand, have taken my trusty V7 IOM off the piano, where it’s been since the 28th December 2014, and re-commissioned her ready to take on the Nationals. I got her rigged and down to the Marina for some sailing the other day and she goes well with the new sails that we got from our good friends at Graphite just before we laid the boat up.

So with no IOM racing under my belt so far this year I’m off to take on the best in the world with my 7 year old boat, but she does look good and goes well in the light stuff!

Looking good if a little out of practice!

Like every business we run on goodies that come from a number of suppliers who ship raw materials to us which we then turn into our Soch Sails.  Although it’s Saturday night and I probably should be in a pub somewhere I find myself in the workshop making more bits and bobs to keep sail production on track.

Tonight we have cut many sail battens, made lots of RG65 Class insignia and a few toolbox stickers as well as cutting lots of suits of sails ready to be built and shipped in the coming days.

Supplies!

So today we are taking a trip up to Fleetwood to watch the Yachting Monthly Cup which is an amazing event with heaps of history and has been sailed s part of the Vane A Nationals for many years.

I’m also collecting a test vehicle for our panelled sails experiments, I’m quite excited about this boat as it is quite special for a number of reasons, more on that in another post I think.

As well as all that we are racing our DF65 at the Fleetwood club night this evening which should be fun and might see some of the vane sailors have a go!

We had an early start today and by 0800 we’d sorted a suit of sails for delivery to Fleetwood this afternoon and a suit of sails to go out with a DF65 as a birthday present,  just need to book  hotel and get the other 6 orders posted and I’ll be on my way!

Early bird specials!

So here it is, our Soch Sails DF65 Rig Building Guide. We think it is the simplest yet most comprehensive guide to building a DF65 rig. It’s taken us a couple of late nights to put together and we’re happy that it covers all the bases when you build a new rig for your DF65.  Take a look on our DF65 rig kit page where you’ll find a link to the DF65 rig building guide.

So we got a mail from a customer in Italy who bought a set of our Hull & Deck Sticker sets along with a couple of graphics for his boat.  He also sent us a photo of the job mid way through and as you can see he has made a substitution and has a nice glass of Italian white wine instead of a beer!

Nice to see people following our instructions…speaking of which our rig kit guide is nearly finished and ready for you guys.  Hopefully over the weekend or very early next week.

Ever mindful that people crave something extra from their purchases these days and in an age where information is pretty easy to come by we started to look about the place for a good DF65 rig building guide, low and behold we can’t find many good ones and those that are out there don’t tend to cover the mast and boom building tasks, more the putting together of the kit supplied rigs.

So we started our own “Soch Sails” rig building guide. It comes from over 2.5 years of building DF65 rig kits, from the first ones that hit the shops to those supplied today in completely unassembled form. We are basing our manual on what we know works, it might not be what your mate says works but we know it does.

The great thing is that you don’t need a MENSA membership or a Rocket Science degree to follow our DF65 rigging guide, you just need a good hour or so of quiet time and a few cups of tea.

Rigging Guide production, including cups of tea and a hammer…you always need a hammer…

I’m hoping to get the guide completed and posted online within the next few days so that you guys can use it to build the shiny new DF65 rigs that you keep buying from us!

Not strictly Soch Sails news but a reminder of other products that we supply and enjoy racing!

Looking at today’s forecast I thought I should dig out my RC Laser and take a trip up to Fleetwood for a round of the National TT series. Having not raced a Laser in nearly a year I wasn’t expecting too much from the day, especially with National Champion Derek Priestley and other top skippers on hand.

Uncle Dereck showed us all how to do it in less than ideal conditions and took the win with 17 points from 11 races. Second place went to none other than me, tied on 21 points with third place finisher Shaun Holbeche, but on count back I scored more top finishes and took the place.

Not a bad return to Laser racing for me and a return to the class that I started radio sailing with four years ago. Not as quick or responsive as most other classes but probably the only true one design radio sailing class out there and one we are proud to supply and race.

Today we’ve sent an order of five A suits of DF65 sails off to a customer far far away, but can you guess where? The clue is in the picture below which shows the suits having a breath of Welsh air before being carefully packed and sent on their way.

Some Sails!

As well as completing this order we found a little time to get down to the marina again and do some sailing, which is always good fun. Today we did some testing on the panelled sails that we gave you a sneaky peek at in the last post. Using the DF65 as a testbed we have been testing our standard single panel A suit sails against a panelled A suit that we have produced. The tuning cycle on the panelled suit is quite different to the single panel suit as the shape is already there with the panelled sails and I’m pretty pleased with what I’ve built and the boat does trap on a bit!

Panelled Sails on a DF65…crikey whatever next!

Whilst totally illegal for the DF65 class the panelled sails will do nicely as a B suit on an RG65 and with some further testing we should get some other sails built and on an RG65 soon enough, which means we’ll need an RG65, which probably means we’ll need to build one. Next weeks project sorted then!

We are busy busy busy at the moment and the with the weather being pretty rubbish round here at the moment it has given us a bit of time to beetle on with some orders. Here is tonight’s work, a full set of A, B and C suits, the A suit is from our film range with the B and C suits coming from our laminate range. Numbers supplied and applied in our A style. Ready to ship out tomorrow to their new owner along with a hull and deck sticker set and some deck patch sets.

A, B & C Suits

Matching Hull & Deck Sticker Set