A forecast of some showers followed by some afternoon sunshine were about right, the breeze didn’t do quite what had been suggested which meant a day of A plus sailing for most with a couple of races in A suit for some.

As ever the Lincoln race team were super organised and ran a great day of racing and along with the tea ladies the competitors were kept fed and watered through the day.

The racing itself ended up being somewhat predictable at the top of the scoreboard with JT taking top spot including a brace of 5th place scores to count it certainly wasn’t the usual whitewash. The usual bunch fought it out along with the 21 skippers and in the end the best of the rest was Derek Priestley followed in third spot by Tim Long. Fourth to sixth were covered by just 8 points with Weston, Ken and Peter Baldwin in that order.

The rest of the fleet were similarly close with the usual battles taking place and keeping everyone on their toes.

The final day of the TT series happens tomorrow and with a slightly better overall forecast it promises to be a cracker.

Results sheet below.

Prize winners below also….

So after 5.5 miles of walking we are off to the pub now!

So we are once again beginning the prep for the final round of the UK DF Racing TT Series which looks like a 5th or 6th place finish for me in the overall standings unless I put some really good sailing together. It’ll do for me though and I’ll head to the next event ready for some more great racing.

That next event is around 5000 miles away over in Naples Florida, and our journey to get there starts Monday with a trip to Manchester to see a good friend for a few beers, followed by a flight out to Orlando on Tuesday morning. I have 24 hours in Orlando with no plans whatsoever, so if anyone has some good ideas as to what I can do just let me know!

US Distributor Chuck flies in Wednesday and we will then begin Tim & Chucks epic roadtrip, probably in some sort of comedy vehicle, to Naples.

Practice Thursday followed by three days of tough competition against the USA’s finest DF95 skippers. Roadtrip back to Orlando on Monday and arrive back in the UK on Tuesday morning.

Let the boat prep commence!

It will be a blast I’m sure, but this does mean that as of close of business tomorrow, Thursday 2nd November, there will be no production taking place until probably Wednesday the 15th November.  The shop will be open as usual but no orders will be fulfilled until our return.

If however you need some of our goodies in a hurry then please head over to the RC Yachts shop who are fully stocked with nearly all of what we have to offer.

We will be checking our email whilst we are on our travels so if you need to get hold of us you can do.

Again, we hope to head off with all our orders completed, something we should achieve this afternoon or by mid morning tomorrow. If you need anything between now and then, just ping us an order through and we’ll do our best to get it fulfilled before we leave.

In the meantime, here are some of the sails on their way to customers around the globe.

So we rolled back into the office on Monday morning with a total of 35 orders which had been placed whilst we were away on holiday (which was really good by the way!) with a remit to get them all out of the door before the end of the week.

Out for a trundle during storm Brian with Phoebe.

As I write this at 18.42 on Thursday evening we have completed and sent 95% of those orders. We have a suit of sails awaiting a number and we have two suits of sails awaiting A plus rig kits that will be with us tomorrow.

So there are lots of goodies on their way to customers all over the globe, sails, sticker sets, rig kits, rig bags, patches, you name it, we’ve sent it this week.

Just a few of the suits of sails we’ve made this week.

As we are here to help with your requirements and the shop is open 24 hours to take your order. We will be going away again on Friday the 3rd November and will not be returning until the 15th November. A bit of a late season event at Lincoln and then another epic roadtrip to the USA for the DF95 National Championships.

If you are in the USA and need anything taking to the regatta please let us know in plenty of time so we might get it sorted and packed for you.

However if you need anything in the meantime please bear the above in mind.

 

So we’ve sorted all our orders out and have a clean sheet ready for our holidays which start on Thursday.

We will be back in the workshop on the 23rd October, however whilst we are away we will have email access but obviously will not be able to fulfil any order placed after midnight tonight.

So if you want a suit of sails or some stickers whilst we are away enjoying the delights of Derbyshire please get in touch with Mike & Ann at RC Yachts who can supply you with our goodies, most of which they have in stock.

In the meantime here are some of the sails we have sent out this week.

The shop is open 24 hours a day to take your order www.sochsails.online

So we are back from the DF65 Nationals and all caught up on our orders bar three which will go out early next week. As usual we had a blast at the event, catching up with some old friends and also making new ones as well.

Whilst the final entry wasn’t at the 50 odd we had expected with the actual number being 41 it seems that the event made the DF65 the third best attended UK National Championship in Radio Sailing, not too shabby really for a plastic tub made in China. With the usual mix of skippers throughout the field, including some absolute beginners at their first event, not bad going by them at all.

Having sailed a reasonable seeding race I stayed in A fleet for the heat stages of the competition and counted a worst score of 10th over the whole weekend. by close of play on Saturday I found myself in a very creditable fifth spot with just 5 points or so separating second to sixth.

Sunday saw some trickier courses due to the breeze which I din’t enjoy so much but going in to lunch on Sunday there were four or five of us all tied on 34 points leaving all to play for in the last three races. I took my tenth spot in race 11, won the next one and would probably have been demoted to B fleet after a poor finish in the final race with a discarded 13th as my lowest place finish of the weekend.

After Sundays racing I had climbed a place to finish the event fourth overall which I was pleased with having shown a level of consistency that I haven’t before. Congrats to Tushy who sailed an almost faultless regatta, Derek who showed once again you don’t need to win a race to score well, you just need to score well time after time and Nigel, who was ninth going into Sunday’s racing and just sailed a storming day to climb six places to finish third overall.

GBR 99 looking sporty! – Photo Sue Brown…thanks Sue!

 

Congrats also to all the other skippers that took part, everyone sailed in a mature and sensible manner with most people completing penalties as required and were a credit to the class as a whole.

After the Nationals I’m still sat in second spot for the overall TT placings, however I’m missing the next event at Keighley as I’m on holiday so I don’t expect to be there for much longer!

We have rig kits for both DF65 and DF95 back in stock now and they can be ordered through the shop, we also have a limited quantity of our great DF65 4 pocket rig bags in stock too.

Sail orders are currently being fulfilled within a couple of days of placing an order with RC Laser spares, stickers and other items being sent almost by return providing we have the right coloured vinyl in stock (annoyingly not this week!)

Advance warning that we will be on holiday during the mid part of October and will not be sending any orders out after the 11th  and then again before the the 23rd so if you have anything you’d like around that time please either order it early or wait until the 23rd!

Thanks for continuing to support our little brand, we are still always amazed at where our customers pop up from.

Find below a couple of shots of some of our recent sails.

DF65 Sails

DF95 Sails

Stealth A suit for DF65

 

We will be out of the office now until Monday, so any orders that have come through the door since last night will not now be looked at until Monday morning when we return.

Our road trip starts bright and early tomorrow with a quick jaunt to the Southampton Boatshow followed by a jaunt along the South Coast to Eastbourne for mid afternoon.

See you all there.

 

We are off for a bit of a jolly over the next couple of days and will not be in the office.

Back Saturday briefly before a trip over to Keighley on Sunday for some DF65 racing.

As always the shop is open and we are pretty much up to date but any orders placed from now will not be looked at until our return on Monday.

Home for a couple of nights with the fam!

We had a busy month in August, lots of Soch Sails goodies going all over the place as usual however August is traditionally our busiest month at the Boatyard and we haven’t done any website updating or even any sailing in the last 6 weeks.

However we have had some more of our popular rig bags produced and they are back up on the shop.  W don’t have many of the DF95 bags available, but we do have good stock of the DF65 bags which now sport four pockets and can hold all of the rigs for a DF65, from A+ to C.  We do have a couple of three pocket DF65 rig bags still available, if you want one of these please get in touch.

We are now starting to gear up for the DF65 Nationals here in the UK which happen towards the end of September on the South Coast at Eastbourne. Hopefully we’ll get some practice in over the next week or two….

If you need any DF sails or goodies please check out the shop, it’s open even when we are asleep!

So it doesn’t seem like two minutes ago since I was at West Lancs YC for the RC Laser Nationals, but it’s almost been a whole month, which is crazy.  Since then we have been busy making our goodies for customers all across the globe as well as dealing with the boatyard which is super busy at this time of year. Early starts and late finishes have become the norm and will remain so for the next month I guess.

In amongst all this we did manage a quick trip down to the South West of the UK for the DF Racing UK weekend at Dartmoor RSC. 7.5 hours in the van on Friday and a little bit of practice was had before the rain arrived.  Saturday saw the A+ rig get it’s first outing during an event and I’m pleased that I took the time to build myself one before heading off to the event. Very little breeze and rain were the order of the day but the racing was as tough as ever and I was stoked to take third spot by a handful of points.

Sunday saw the polar opposite of Saturdays weather and we were greeted by sun and wind for the DF95 event.  Not as many boats but again, a strong fleet and despite a couple of racecourse tangles I was happy to have taken a fourth spot finish for the day, only missing out on third by two points.

Dartmoor, including a couple of the stupidest sheep I’ve ever seen!

This has left us in second spot in the rankings for 2017 so far, with three events left I’ll do well to hold on to 2nd but I’ll certainly try!

After a shorter journey home, a mere five and three quarter hours, I was back at the office bright and early on Monday morning, having been told I really did need to start offering the super shiny sticker sets to the world. So we got on and did that and you can now buy them for any of the DF products in five colours. They really do make your boat stand out from the crowd.

Check them out on the shop by clicking here.

Super pimp stickers on their way out of the workshop.

We’ve also been busy producing DF sails for customers as usual with a good mix of both DF65 an DF95 sails going out of the workshop. Our Stealth sails seem to be quite popular too with a few sets now in Italy and a couple in Japan.

In other news we have been looking at producing panelled sails for some time and over the last few weeks we have built a couple of camber boards and are currently using the DF65 as a platform for testing different setups and shapes using the DF65 A rig as a benchmark. This should allow us to produce some sails for the RG65 class that will be competitive in performance to whats out there already.

It’s almost good to go.

It is then our intention to continue our sailmaking journey with some sails for other classes too, but that could be a while off yet depending on how busy we are at the yard over the coming months.

Keep checking back for more updates on our sailmaking and don’t forget, should you need something from the shop, it is always open. Click here to take a look.

So an early dart on Saturday morning to West Lancs YC in Southport for the 2017 RC Laser Nationals. A reasonable entry of 20 skippers from across the UK, sunny skies and a little breeze. A rigs all weekend apart from a couple of early races on Sunday and I was glad I finally found a little time to put a fresh one together on Friday.

Skippers ready to race – Photo Susan Sharman

For me, Saturday morning was superb, the afternoon session was poor but I went into the overnight in 4th spot which was good enough. Saturday evening was spent in good company and a few beers were had and some food was eaten with a retirement time of around 23.00.

There are worse places to spend an evening!

Sunday morning saw some good racing in B rig conditions but with a dying breeze I took a chance in one race with the A rig and scored my only win of Sundays racing, that win combined with a smattering of second places left me in good shape heading into the final three races where right at the death on the last leg of the last race whilst sat in a comfortable third spot I caught some weed and watched the fleet sail past me before eventually finishing in a lowly twelfth spot which cost me second spot for the regatta by just one point.

Trophy!

Hey, ho, it’s only a game and I came home with another weekend sailing tan, some chocolates and a trophy, can’t grumble at that really. Thanks to all those at West Lancs who ran the event and thanks also to the skippers that took part and made the event as amusing as it was.

Full results sheet

There are a couple of photos from Susan Sharman who, as well as competing, also made some time to shoot a few photos. Check them out by clicking here