admin Date , August 20, 2025 Sailing Previous Blog Started First, Finished Last Comments (0)
The Secret Weapon Nobody Talks About – Soap and a Sponge
When I first started racing, I thought the secret to speed was all in the sails. Pull this rope, ease that sheet, squint at the burgee like a seasoned skipper, and the boat would magically leap forward. Turns out, you can have the perfect tack, the gust of the century, and still be left behind by the bloke with the Phantom… because my hull was dragging half the River Thames along with it.
Yes, dear reader, I discovered the unglamorous truth: a clean hull is faster than a dirty one.
Why It Matters
Imagine trying to run a race with mud glued to the soles of your shoes. That’s what a slime-covered dinghy hull is like — slow, sticky, and stubborn. Every bit of algae, every slime streak, every suspicious green patch adds drag. It’s like pulling a shopping trolley with that one wheel that insists on pointing sideways.
On the Thames, you don’t need barnacles to slow you down. A thin film of slime will do nicely. And if your boat sits on a mooring all week, congratulations: you’ve just grown your very own speed-sapping garden under the waterline.
The Difference on the Water
With a clean hull, suddenly everything feels easier:
You glide through the tacks instead of grinding to a halt.
The boat accelerates away from the start line instead of feeling like it’s stuck in treacle.
You swear you’ve gained an extra gear — though sadly, not quite enough to outsprint the Phantoms (yet).
And when you round a mark, you can actually steer tightly without the boat groaning like a reluctant teenager being asked to tidy their room.
The Glamour of Scrubbing
Of course, getting that hull clean is less glamorous. There’s nothing quite like lying face-down on a club jetty, sponge in hand, muttering at the river weeds clinging to your centreboard. Fellow sailors stroll by, offering “helpful” advice: “You’ve missed a spot.”
But when you launch next time and feel the boat slip effortlessly forward, you’ll know it was worth every splash and soggy sock.
The Cheap Upgrade
So, while others splash out on carbon masts, racing foils, or the latest sail cut, remember this: soap, water, and elbow grease are the cheapest performance upgrade in sailing.
And who knows — one day, with a gleaming hull and just the right gust, you might even hold off that Phantom. For a few seconds, anyway.
Note to self: invest in longer arms. Scrubbing the far side of the hull while hanging upside down off the jetty is a younger person’s game.
You’d think that with only three boats on the water it would be a quiet morning. Far from it — we somehow managed to clock up three rescues in about 20 minutes. Who needs a full regatta fleet when you can create just as much drama with three?
First up was Guy. He managed to beach his boat neatly on the shallows — once is unfortunate, but twice begins to look like practice. After pulling him off the first time, we barely had time to congratulate ourselves before he was stuck in exactly the same spot again. This time we had to break out the rope, tie it round his mast, and give him a proper tug back into the middle of the stream. He was practically becoming a feature of the riverbank.
Next came John in the Zest, who discovered the joy of sailing in absolutely no wind. After several attempts to coax the boat into turning round to catch what little breeze there was, we finally admitted defeat and gave him a tow back to the pontoon. He accepted it with the weary look of a man who’d had enough “drifting practice” for one day.
So, three boats, three rescues. Not exactly the peaceful sail we’d imagined, but it did keep us on our toes — and proved once again that you don’t need a crowd to make the river busy.
With a nice clean and sparkling RS Toura, we thought that we had better clean the Whaly, so out came the soapy water and the jet washer and a lot of scrubbing. The surface of the Whaly is quite rough so as well as the jet washer we also needed a scrubbing brush and Guy - perhaps feeling that he owed us something for the rescues, came and scrubbed the boat too.
