UK Dinghy Racing
Newsletter No 11
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Please note new URL www.ukdinghyracing.com

If you are still using the old URL, or viewing any pages with dingyrac.force9.co.uk in the title bar then please ignore these and go to www.ukdinghyracing.com
The old site is nolonger updated and will eventually disappear, many thanks.

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This is the eleventh issue of the Newsletter and I hope to produce one a month, with possible extra issuse during the summer when there is more sailing activity.

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Both the Newsletter and the site are a hobby, I do this in the evenings and weekends, and try to keep an open and neutral perspective on issues.

The aim of the site is to entertain like minded people who have a passion for dinghy racing or sailing. I have tried to keep the site as specific as possible, ie UK not worldwide although the info and chat may be of interest to many. The listings of Sailing Clubs and Class Associations are purely British so there are no hugh lists of useless links to try and find one useful one.

On the question of links I have spent many hours searching for the UK sites but am sure I have missed some, so if you find any relevant ones please send them to me.

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In this Issue

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1.New site layout
2.America's Cup
3.Boat Jumbles
4.Attention Laser Sailors
5.Freebies

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If you know somebody that would like this newsletter why not forward a copy onto them with a brief message, and they can then visit https://www.ukdinghyracing.com to subscribe.

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1. New Site Layout

As I am sure many of you will have seen I have been playing around with the layout of UK Dinghy Racing.

My intention is to keep what is called a "horizontal" site, that is to say most pages can be accessed from most others, thus fewer clicks. The alternative is a "vertical" site that you need to dig into to find the information you are looking for, much less user friendly and requiring a lot of clicks to find what you are looking for.
I have also played with the idea of a top navigation bar as this will make finding navigation easier, so far the comments I have received are positive over this.
The final comment lies with the colours of the page, most people it appears don't like red on blue, and prefer to read text on a light background, my final choice is not yet made, but all suggestions are gratefully received, see a sample new page at

https://www.ukdinghyracing.com/newtab.htm

An alternative colour scheme is found at

https://www.ukdinghyracing.com/store/download.htm

Please send me your comments ..............

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2. Americas Cup

Although the early stages of the Americas Cup challenger series have started I have some difficulty in getting excited yet.

I suppose the lack of a British entry plays a big part in this, and the fact that it will go on until next February will require huge dedication from the followers of this series.

I have though signed up to get daily email, which in just a few lines tells me what is going on and I can then go to the site if something strikes me as interesting, a couple of sinkings might do it!

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3. Boat Jumbles

Until this year boat jumbles were never something I considered for dinghy bits, how wrong I have been.
Although the chandlers won't thank me for telling you this a bit of time at boat jumbles can save you a lot of money, I have visited 2 this past couple of months and found bargains such as

Packs of up to 30 stainless screws - £1.00
Various stainless deck eyes - 20p
Various ball bearing blocks - £2.00
1.3kg pack of epoxy resin & hardner, complete with dispensing pumps - £10.00
Milanes type rudder stock £8.00 (a saving of over £100)
Rope of all types and lengths at excellent prices.

I shall now be visiting boat jumbles on a regular basis a full list of dates and venues can be found at

www.oceanblue1.demon.co.uk/jumbs.htm

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4. Attention Laser Sailors

I have recently become aware of a CD Rom for Laser sailors, this is an excellent product made by SailCoach, an International group of sailing coaches based in Ireland.

The CD Rom contains just about everything that a Laser sailor needs to improve their performance, it takes you through everything from rigging & setting the boat up to sailing at the top level, contains video clips to ease the understanding and has contributions from many top Laser sailors and coaches.

With Christmas approaching this would make an excellent present for anybody with a Laser, or why not treat yourself, at £39.99 it costs less than a set of new ropes and will improve your performance by much more.
You can get more information at

www.ukdinghyracing.com/store/store.htm

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5. Freebies

Using the Internet for me has been a revelation as to what some people will give away for free, nice people they are too, and so I have searched the computers of the world to try and find useful freebies for sailors.

I have created a list of these at

www.ukdinghyracing.com/store/download.htm

Here there are race results programmes, hull design and sail design software, a demo of a sailing simulator, a printable protest form and screensavers. Most are freeware, but some shareware or time limited demos, I will try to add new things regularly, and will put up my own screensavers for download very soon.
However if you find any free sailing downloads please let me know and I will add them to the list.