Hi, I love anything fun!!!! Especially dancing!!! - That's what I'm attempting in the piccy!!!!! And...
Hi, I love anything fun!!!! Especially dancing!!! - That's what I'm attempting in the piccy!!!!! And nattering! ...oh yeah...love horse riding too!
Argh! I wrote loads on a review the other day and it didn't save! This stupid site!!!
Member since:19.09.2005
Reviews:35
Members who trust:10
Overview:
Urgh!!!!!! I have awful memories of these little boats. They put me off sailing for life! I will admit, they are very easy to explain to new sailers how to handle them, and there isn't that much which can go wrong with them. Also they are great because they are only a single person boat, hence you can go out on your own.
How I can across these boats:
When I was at secondary school I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to go to Tower Wood, based on Lake Windamere. Tower Wood itself was great. It is a residential establishment which caters for school groups often. On my trip there were a few people from different schools so I made quite a few new friends.
During the days we learnt to sail, and at nights we did some orienteering, and played games etc
Well, on our first day of sailing we were introduced to Toppers. The ones at Tower Wood were all bright pink. We had to get into pairs and drag one boat per pair down to the little shingle shore line. We then had to get a sail, rudder and something which goes in the middle of the boat but I can't remember the name of it, sorry.
We had to attach these to the topper under instruction, and then we were given a short
demonstration of how to use them, by an instructor on land. Then we had to go and practice the things which we had just been shown in our pairs before taking to the water. We were mainly practicing ducking under the boom without getting tangled up in the raopes that were attached to the sails.
My experience of these boats:
If you already know anything about topper you will know that they are a single person boat, but we were sent out in pairs on this boat. In a way this was good as it meant that you didn't have to tink about doing everything at once, but it meant that there was hardly any room to manouvre, and you were also having to guess at how the boat was likely to move, seeing as their were two weights unbalancing the boat.
At first we were doing well with this and it was enjoyable. Unfortunately though when we were there is was very windy, and the wind was very blustery and kept changing directions.
We were practicing sailing in a reasonably straight line, then turning around at the end and sailing back along the same straightish line. Unfortunately we had not been taught to jybe (sorry if that's spelt wrong). For those of you who do not know about sailing, jybing is were you turn into the wind instead of away from it (if I remember correctly?)
Well, when you do a normal turn the Boom (Big metal pole which is position right along the boat at head level, which the sail is attached to) swings from one side of the boat to the other. It starts this journey reasonabley slowly,and then suddenly darts to the other side. When you are turning you start to turn and then crouch down in the middle of the boat while the boom swings over your head and then sit back upright on the opposite side of the boat.
Now...when you do a jybe properly the sail and boom act a little differently. I can't actually remember exactly what happens as I on;y did this a couple of times. Unfortunately, the first time we jybed, it was not planned, it was simply because the wind changed direction. As we crouched down, the boom passed over us and we were standing back up, suddenly the boom came flying back towards us, hit us in the heads, and knocked us both clean out of the boat.
The second time, was a pretty similar experience, except this time it hit me in the nose. Luckily for me my nose is really tough, and (touch wood) I have never managed to break, or even bust it. The trainer came over and told me to get back in the boat, but my hat had come off, so they said that I should get back into the boat and they would go and catch my hat.
Well, after some struggling I managed to get back into the boat, turned around to see how the trainer was managing with my hat, only to see them sat there dabbing blood from their nose, having just done exactly the same as me.
Although I love being outdoors and being active, I hate being cold. Being that the way wetsuits work is to trap cold water in them and use your body heat to warm it up and hence keep you warm, I was slightly unhappy with the sailing lark before all this happened.
To then be 'dumped' into Lake Windamere several times, and then after that for it to start hail stoning and raining I really did not enjoy the day.
For potential Topper users/buyers:
If you are interested in sailing toppers but haven't done that much sailing, or any at all I would highly recommend trying it at some where like Tower Wood. I read one of the other reviews before writing mine, and saw just how expensive Toppers are. Also you will need, or at least I would highly recommend some sort of life jacket or bouyancy aid, and suitable clothing ie Wet suit (or as I myself wold have preffered a dry suit). I haven't looked into prices for these, but I would presume that these too are quite pricey.
Tower Wood provide all of the above for you. That way you can try sailing for yourself relatively cheaply and decide whether or not it is for you before parting with all of that money.
If sailing is for you then I would highly recommend Toppers, believe it or not. What I wouldn't recommend is using it as a two person vessel, so that you will have plenty of room to manouvre. I would also recommend that for the first couple of times that you try it you use it in medium wind conditions rather than heavy, blustery winds.
Once you master using the topper if you find that sailing is for you, they are great. They are small enough to use on resorvoirs, as well as taking to lakes, and they are easy to manouvre, so you can dash about all over the place, have races in them, practice capsizing, as they are also very easy to right again. And they are small enough to store in your garage or large shed, and can be easily popped on top of the car, or in a small trailer to transport to your destination.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Advantages: you dont need to know much to be able to sail a topper all you realey need to know is how to put the mast in and put the boom (wich is the horizontal pole) they are very boyant and made from a strong fibre glass hull the boat its self goes quite fast Disadvantages: they can capsize if not handeld properly
Advantages: you dont need to know much to be able to sail a topper all you realey need to know is how to put the mast in and put the boom (wich is the horizontal pole) they are very boyant and made from a strong fibre glass hull the boat its self goes quite fast Disadvantages: they can capsize if not handeld properly
Oct 19th, 2005
very helpful by (90%):
helpful by (10%):
