Sailing videos

I promised to post some videos I took of Kittiwake sailing – here they are. They’re quite big so may take a long time to download (don’t try unless you have broadband) and will only play on very recent versions of media players like Quicktime or RealPlayer.

They give you a very good feeling of how fast Kittiwake is (she’s doing about five knots in the videos) and in particular how fast she feels, since Kittiwake has quite low sides (‘freeboard’) and so you’re very close to the water rushing past.

One thing I’d like you to notice is how there are no railings on the narrow bow, where you have to kneel to take down the jib. Now imagine doing that as the boat is tossing through stormy waves, when the bow is wet and slippery and steeply sloping, actually digging into the biggest waves. No wonder Eve makes me do that :-).