Evening!

We’ve been bowled over by the success of our online shop, gobsmacked that so many people from so many places want to buy cool stuff for their DF65’s and RC Lasers from us. We’ve been beavering away in the shed and since our last post here we’ve shipped sails, stickers and other goodies all over the world.

Here is a suit of sails we shipped to Denmark the other day.

As well as dealing with the day to day Soch Sails orders its that time of year when our other business, a full size boatyard for those of you who don’t know!, gets busy with winter servicing and undercover storage so we’ve been dealing with that too, although we’ve got a great team down there!

As well as this we’ve also slowly been adding more products and categories to the online shop and getting a little sleep here and there. As if this wasn’t enough to be getting on with we’ve been doing some product development, our sailbags need a little more work before we launch them to the world but we are pretty pleased with our boat and keel socks which we will add to the shop when we get a moment and our panelled RG65 sails are currently being tested at our local test location, more on that soon enough!

More cool stuff that will appear in the shop soon enough!

In other news I haven’t sailed much recently but am starting to get excited about the US DF65 Nationals at the end of this month. Team GBR now numbers 4 with myself, Mark Dicks, Ken Binks and the late addition of Nigel Brown which will ensure that there is plenty of talent representing GBR. I’m assured by the organisers that they are ready for us, I’m not so sure but it’s going to be a blast.

Current lead time on sails is around a week or less, deck stickers are running a 24 hour turnround time and other parts are usually in stock for same day shipping when ordered before lunchtime.

If there are any other cool products that you think we should be offering then please let us know!

An odd week last week with some steady orders keeping us busy along with a couple of details that needed some attention at the boatyard meant that I didn’t travel to Datchet for the IOM ranking event over the weekend, instead I chose to pop up the road to West Lancs YC for a ND Laser event which was attended by 15 skippers. A mix of B and A rig conditions saw some good racing through the fleet and I was pleased to finish the day a creditable 3rd.

A return to work on Monday with a steady stream of orders keeping us busy again. Perhaps a camping trip later in the week, who knows!

If you need anything, just let us know!

So a super early dart on Friday morning didn’t quite turn out as planned when just 10 miles from my destination the M25 ground to a halt and I sat in the same place for nearly 4 hours!  Hey ho, destination reached eventually, camp made and a beer or two had before getting up on Saturday morning to a very light breeze.

Breakfasted and ready for the off with an A rig set the day didn’t get off to the best of starts with my lack of stick time letting me down. After lunch however I reset the rig completely and found the sweet spot and scored no less than four second places during the afternoon session which found me sitting 5th overnight.

Some good social after the sailing took us through Sunday morning when the wind had made a 90 degree shift and increased in strength but wasn’t anything to bother the A rig until mid morning when a few people changed down to the B rig and were promptly followed by the rest of the fleet and that was the way it stayed for the rest of the day as the breeze continued to build. I carried on where I’d left off on Saturday and scored a few more solid finishes along with a few not so solid ones!

At the end of play I’d climbed a place during Sunday and finished the event in 4th place behind local skippers Jamie Blair and Adrian Tomlinson with Dave Fowler taking the top spot. A reasonable result considering how little time I’ve had with the boat this year.

It’s always nice to hear from our customers on how they are enjoying their purchases from us here at Soch Sails. We got a photo this morning from a customer based in Switzerland who placed an order with us a week or so ago. Nice looking sails!

SUI 001 on Lac Leman, Switzerland

We also had a photo from a more local customer in Derby who bought a hull & deck sticker set for his boat this week.  Having spent much time drinking tea and reading the instructions he’s made a grand job of sticking them on.

Good work Simon!

Well it’s now Wednesday evening and I’m contemplating loading up Thunderbird 2 again for another weekend away racing, this time its the RC Laser Nationals being held at Barton’s Point Coastal Park on the Isle of Sheppey.

Not a venue I’ve sailed at before but I’m told that it’s a cracker with somewhere to pitch up with Thunderbird 2 for the weekend and enjoy some good sailing and some great social too.  There are several of our local RC Laser fleet making the 300 mile journey to join nearly 20 other skippers for the weekends racing.

A very early start on Friday will mean that there will be no orders dealt with over the weekend but we’ll be back on it on Monday again so if you do place an order with us over the weekend and don’t get a response don’t be worried!

GBR 999, this weekends raceboat!

So after months of manually dealing with orders and payments which seems to take an age, we have opened the first section of our online shop. We have limited it to the Soch Sails items we know to be popular however over the next few weeks we will be adding our full DF65 and RC Laser inventory to the shop.

This will allow you to easily select, order and pay for the goodies that you want which will in turn allow us to easily manage the work flow and orders that come in on a daily basis. Today for instance we’ve sent 2 orders to Italy, 1 to Switzerland, 1 to Malta and a couple of domestic ones too.  Six manually dealt with orders takes quite some time so hopefully the new shop will streamline things a little more.

Clicky the logo to take a look at the Soch Sails Shop have a browse and see what you fancy ordering for your DF65!

Were back from the IOM Nationals, snowed under with things to do and feel like we are walking through treacle, but we’re getting there!

The IOM Nationals were great fun and I finished a creditable 55th out of 80which with no boat time at all until the day before the event I was pretty stoked with. The winds were light or very light which made for some testing conditions.

I had a seriously good run on Monday morning racing from E fleet right up to B fleet in the penultimate race and whilst I could have settled quite well in C fleet it was a little too late by then, hey ho, the company was good and the sailing was fun but some more practice would have helped!

So I landed back at Soch Sails HQ last Tuesday and spent most of the day tidying out a very wet van and sorting out a lot of wet kit.  For some reason this seemed to take most of the week and it seemed that I got very little actual work completed.

That said we are in the process of sorting out a proper online shop for our goodies including all our Soch Sails inventory, our DF65 lines and our RC Laser lines too, this will make it easier for you guys to order from us and easier for us to manage our work flow.

A short camping trip away over the weekend and we hit the ground running this week and have already sent two orders Stateside and several to the UK, another busy day tomorrow will see some more orders going out to UK customers and hopefully towards the back end of this week we can launch the first section of the new shop.

Next week we’ll be prepping for the RC Laser Nationals which are being held at Medway RC Laser Club at Barton’s Point Country Park, so another outing for Thunderbird 2 and some beer crates again then!

Sorry for the long post, lots to catch up on.

That’s it, Thunderbird two is ready for the off. A 6am start tomorrow should see us at the IOM Nationals venue for around 11am. I’ve got the boat, some sails and some batteries, anything I’m missing…..?

Everything but the kitchen sink I reckon!

Good luck to all those competing this weekend, it’s sure to be a giggle, it’s the first IOM Nationals I’ve done and the only IOM event I’ve sailed this year. It’s nice to be able to pitch up at an event with no expectation at all and enjoy it for what it is.  Current forecast suggests the best of the wind on Saturday with lighter stuff on Sunday and Monday although it’s bound to change!

This was Thunderbird 2’s last visit to Lincoln, very civilised it was too!

If you place an order with us over the next few days please don’t be alarmed if you don’t get a response until Tuesday, oh and Scott Mauney, your rig kit is away to you but I keep getting a pingback on your email!

The early part of this morning was spent completing a couple of Stateside Soch Sails orders to Florida and Hawaii which are on their way now and were the final orders before we leave for the IOM Nationals at Lincoln MYC.

We’ve got plenty to come back to and we will crank up Soch Sails DF65 sail production again on Tuesday when the van is unloaded and we’ve got a straight edge!

The rest of the morning was spent at the Marina with the V7 and a C rig getting some much needed stick time with the boat in some good waves and breeze before starting to get the van packed up for the weekend. I’ve booked a cracking campsite which is behind a pub less than 1 mile from the Scotland Farm venue.

Sorry about the photos, taken with an iPhone whilst sailing!