CRUISING
APRIL 2016 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com 39could be in excess of £10,000, but
that’s still a bargain compared to a
second-hand plastic Nordic, which
costs about £25,000.
‘I’d heard they were good sailing
boats but they were wet. I knew
the headroom and beam were
restrictive, but it didn’t put us off.
It’s a good endorsement to know
that the Contessa 26 and Twister
have a large touch of Folkboat in
them. She’s a pretty little boat,
deep enough in the keel and big
enough for what we wanted.’
Carlinetta’s maiden cruise from
Fareham to Yarmouth was for the 2004
Folkboat Week. ‘By then she’d been off
the Solent scene for more than a decade,’
Dave told me. ‘Word had got around that
she was back and there was a rousing
reception on our arrival in Yarmouth. The
crowd included Christine Webster, the
previous owner, and the famous Folkboat
builder Tom Husband who took my lines,
looked her up and down and commented:
‘Not a bad job, nipper.’
As Dave concluded his tale, word
was travelling along the pontoon like
the beating of a tribal drum. It was a
definite ‘go’ for sailing. Down below and
in cockpits, crews donned their oilies,lifejackets, hats and hoods. It was
blowing old boots and the rain was
bucketing down.
With lines and fenders off, we
joined an orderly queue to leave
harbour. It was August but it may
as well have been November. The
breeze outside the harbour had
freshened and nasty squalls were
blowing through the fleet. Dave
rounded up into the wind for Rob
to hoist the mainsail. Rain lashed
down as gusts battered Carlinetta.
Dave gripped the tiller and Karen
kept dry down below as Rob
carefully shuffled forward to set the genoa.
‘She’s easy to sail – strong and solid,’
Dave shouted across the cockpit. ‘We’ll
get 5-6 knots if we’re lucky. Upwind she’ll
point reasonably high.’
He has a spinnaker but so far has never
used it, preferring to pole out a big
genoa downwind. ‘She’ll go fast enoughDave helms Carlinetta as Rob Wilks prepares to set the genoa