Sorry we’ve been a little quiet again on the social media front but we’ve been super busy. As many of you will know we also run a full size boatyard which over the last two weeks has been the busiest we have seen it for some years.

We had some absolutely stunning weather which lasted through the bank holiday weekend, through the half term holidays and finally broke yesterday afternoon with a storm which has made things a little less stuffy.

As a consequence of this Tim has had to go to “actual” work and has spent the last 7 of 9 days at the boatyard looking after that side of the business. This has had a bit of a knock on effect on the Soch Sails business which is now running a little bit behind schedule. We are working hard today, Tuesday, but will be out of the office on Wednesday and Thursday before having another work day on Friday. We’ll then be back in the shed on Monday 13th June for a day but will then be babysitting for a few days and attending a funeral so it will be another disjointed week for production.

In the meantime please accept our apologies for the slightly slower than usual service and enjoy a photo of Tim doing “actual” work and servicing a nice Yamaha 70hp outboard!

Cheers, Tim

WordPress tells me it’s been a month since we last added a post to our website so I suppose I should apologise for the lack of info during that period. In essence there hasn’t been much to tell you guys other than that we’ve been super busy again building sails, cutting sticker sets and of course taking a week out to get ourselves up to Dragonfest for some racing. So whilst there isn’t much to tell you there is a bit to catch up on and we’ve got some photos too.

DF95 start at DragonFest

Lets start with DragonFest. It was awesome, we completed 92 races over 5 days with both the DF65 and the DF95. There were lots of very cool looking boats on the racecourse, some sporting our sails and sticker kits and some homebrew designs but all looking very colourful. Mike Weston sailing GBR69 was the winner of the Friday DF95 event and he was equipped with our sails and stickers.

GBR 69

Our own performance was ok considering that we enjoyed a lot of social activity, we scored a 6th and a 7th on the two pre event race days, 7th on the DF95 race day and 9th for the DragonFest DF65 event over the weekend. I lost the ability to sail on Sunday and having held on to 5th place overnight I plummeted to 9th at the end of the event having burnt the candle at both ends a little too hard over the week.

Full report and results here.

In other news we did some RC Laser racing at the beginning of May up at Fleetwood, whilst conditions weren’t ideal but we did score a pretty convincing win which we were pretty pleased with. There is a report on Yachts & Yachting here.

The workshop has been busy manufacturing DF65 and DF95 sails, rig bags and sticker sets for customers all over the world. We’ve included a couple of photos of some of the work we’ve done over the last few weeks.

Sticker sets and patches on their way out

Full hit of DF95 sails

DF95 A suit

DF95 B suit on the water

DF65 sails

So we are now back into the swing of things after having last week away and we are busy producing more goodies for skippers worldwide and we should have a batch of our DF95 rig bags ready for sale sometime in the next week or so. Our DF65 rig bags are back on the shop again and you can buy one here.

Remember, if you need sails or cool stuff for your DF racing yacht we can help, check out the shop here.

 

Morning folks, we’ve spent the morning drinking coffee for a change and pondering how to offer our DF95 sticker sets to the world. In the end we have decided to offer them three ways, you can either have a plain full set of six vinyl’s in your colour of choice or you can take a set with your preferred name or sail number on the aft deck sticker.  We have also decided to offer a hull only set which just has the two hull topside stickers but also comes with six, yes six, of our deck hatch patch stickers which are single use items. It seemed silly to waste the extra vinyl so we cracked on and have given you all al little extra goodness, just because we can really!

Dragonflite 95 hull & deck sticker set – plain

We have now added them to the shop and you can now take a look at them and get a set or two ordered.

Dragonflite 95 hull only sticker set with deck hatch patches

DF95 hull & deck sticker set with number on aft deck

So after what seems like an absolute age we found some time to complete the development of our DF95 hull and deck sticker sets. We have invested many cups of tea and a couple of very late nights into the sticker sets and we think we’ve got it covered….literally!

The sets comprise of six vinyl stickers, two hull topside stickers, one foredeck sticker, an aft deck sticker, transom well sticker and a single use deck hatch sticker. Unlike our full length DF65 sticker sets we have developed the DF95 deck sticker in three parts so that there is no need to remove any deck fittings other than the sheeting elastic. It makes application of the deck sticker super easy which is what we like!

We will be adding the sticker sets to the shop over the next day or two and we will be offering a few variations of the sticker sets. Whilst the white deck on the DragonFlite 95 lends itself to one of our sticker sets we have had requests for hull only sets so we will more than likely offer hull only sets as well as full sets in plain and numbered or named.

24 hours or less and you should be able to purchase a set, we’ll keep you posted!

So we’ve been busy beavering away again over the last week or so and we are pleased to let you know that our first batch of DF95 rig bags are complete and have been shipped off around the world, I would have taken a photo but to be honest we were in a bit of a rush so we forgot until they were packaged up so here is a photo of some rig bags and sails.

Stuff to post.

The above photo leads me to the purpose of this post which is who on earth knew that you’d need at least 5 different types of cardboard tube to send out goodies in. Last week alone we bought three different sizes and spent over £100 just to make sure that your sails and goodies turn up in good order. Of course when you get a delivery of more than 100 different sized tubes and end caps you need somewhere to store them too which now means I’m forever tripping over cardboard tubes and we now have an official “packing department” in the tree house.

Please visit the shop and help us out before I break my neck!

In other news we’ll be adding some more products to the shop over the next few days including our sticker sets which are pretty much complete, our DF95 numbers and also sails with numbers applied.

Our lead times spiked a little over the last month due to a surge in demand for sails for the DF95, we are through the majority of those initial orders now and are back to a seven to ten day turnaround on sail manufacture with parts, sail numbers and sticker sets being shipped out usually within 24 hours. Bear with us we’re busy trying not to trip over cardboard tubes!

Some nice DF95 sails ready to be shipped

Sorry we haven’t posted over the last week or so, Easter was happening and our boatyard needed a little bit of attention to make sure it was ready for the season which it now is. Our Easter weather here in North Wales wasn’t great so it allowed us to beetle on with some orders, some of which are pictured below.

A nice mix of DF65 and DF95 sails, boats, rig kits and accessories to keep us busy. Our first batch of DF95 rig bags should roll off the production line tomorrow and will be shipped out over the next few days, apologies for the slight delay, our sailmaker was as busy as we were in the run up to Easter and wasn’t able to look at the order until today.

Our DF95 sticker sets are now pretty much ready to go and should be finalised and on the shop before the weekend too, we know many of you are keen to get your hands on a set and we’ll be making sure that you can apply them with the minimum of fuss.

We hope you are enjoying the new DF95 and remember, if you know someone who wants one, we have them in stock for same day or next day shipping, available in the shop. We are still waiting on DF95 rig kits and bits but when they land we’ll be sure to let you know.

In the meantime enjoy a few photos of some of our hard work from the last week or so.

DF95 and DF65 C Suits

DF95 A & B Suits

DF95 & DF65 C Suits

DF65 A suits

DF95 Full Hit!

 

So after many cups of strong coffee and some early mornings and late nights recently we have now got our DF95 sails sorted, pictured and on the shop. If you need some great looking sails that perform well then look no further.

Soch Sails DF95 A suit

As with our DF65 sails we are offering a range of colours for luffs and corner patches, we are pretty stoked with the way they look and are pretty confident that you’ll like them too.

For more details please clicky here to take a look.

Rig bags are in production with the first batch due mid next week and sticker sets should be good to go later in the weekend………nearly there!!

So we took our DF95 racing yesterday to West Lancs YC where there were 4 other DF95s on the racecourse. All the boats were stock apart from John Tushingham who had a set of custom sails and our own boat which had a set of our hull stickers applied.

DF95 Hull Sticker Set

We think you’ll agree that the hull sticker looks great and just like our DF65 sticker sets it allows you to make your DF racing yacht stand out from the crowd.

DF95 Hull Sticker Set Aft View

We are currently working on a deck sticker solution and we will have the answer in a day or two I imagine. Our current thinking is that we will produce a half length deck sticker then a matching hatch patch and an aft deck sticker with an aft deck well sticker. As soon as we have it sorted we’ll be sure to let you know!

In other news we have done some testing on our DF95 rig bag and we are happy that it ticks all the boxes and is more than suitable for four DF95 rigs with a little room to spare. Full scale production will begin this week and availability will be from early next week, if you want one please get an order in via the shop. Our DF65 rig bags are flying out and we will be on to our second batch of bags shortly.

Visit the shop here.

So we are motoring on with our DF95 pre orders and should have the majority of them delivered by the end of this week. We have found a little time today to sort out our first DF95 rig bag which will get some testing this week and be put into production early next week. It is available to order on the shop and comes as a 4 pocket bag to accommodate all the DF95 rigs. It looks pretty trick too.

DF95 Rig Bag

We have also developed some alternative deck hatch patches for the DF95 which we think are pretty cool, we’ve tried them on our own boat and report back with success. Details are available on the shop for the moment and we will update the Deck Patch page on here over the next few days.

Alternative deck patch, looking good during our first sail.

Boats, Rig Bags, Deck Patches, there must be something else, ah yes, our hull and deck sticker sets, these will be developed over the next few weeks and as soon as we have something we’ll let you know. Sails are on the go too and you can order suits in the shop.

Another shot of our DF95 on its maiden

Other than being very busy we are having a break for the rest of this week and taking a trip to Yorkshire to see my folks. My dad celebrates his 70th birthday next week and they have organised a family get together for the end of this week. After last year’s problematic times we’ve decided that this year we will take the opportunities as they come and this one deserves a few days away with Emily and Phoebe.

As such the shop will still be open and taking your orders however nothing will be manufactured or shipped now until Monday 14th March. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause but we are pretty sure you’ll understand our desire to celebrate with my dad who has been a pretty standout guy during my lifetime!

We have also done a little bit of housekeeping on the website which now sees the DF65 and DF95 having their own range of products. If you hover over either of the two titles you’ll see a drop down menu with details of sails and accessories available for that boat. We will shortly be adding another exciting range of sails, as if we haven’t enough to be getting on with!

There is bound to be something that we’ve missed off this update but hey ho, if I remember I’ll post it up.

Don’t forget to visit the shop!

It looks like we’ll be drowning in boxes of DF95’s as of Monday and if you have preordered one you’ll be getting an email from us tomorrow letting you know how you can sort out your order with us.

In the meantime we thought it might be sensible to get some sails on the go and we’ve sorted our B suits and added some pictures to the website along with the details and you can place an order in the shop.

Rig kits for B, C and D sails are looking like being with us in a couple of weeks time which should give us a couple of weeks to get some stock made, if you want something a little different then get in touch.

Once we have a boat to work with we will be getting our heads around some sticker sets so that you can pimp your boat and stand out from the crowd. No doubt these will appear in the shop in a couple of weeks.

As well as all that good stuff we will be engineering some rig bags  to keep your shiny new sails…..well…shiny and new! These will appear in the shop as soon as they are ready.

So as you can see we’ve got a busy few weeks coming up, including sorting out the boatyard for Easter too. Any chance of a couple of extra hours in each day, or maybe an extra day each week???

If we don’t answer your email promptly it’s not that we don’t love you, it’s just that we are a little busy and we will try to deal with mails during the evenings.