Providing sailing news for sailors

by Dave Reed
On the water’s edge on a bayside seaside in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, a vibrant orange Windmill sits in its dolly. Crisp white sails dangle limp from the spars, however invisible puffs excite cassette-tape strands hooked up to the shrouds, foretelling what’s out yonder on Tampa Bay, a placid vastness stretching into the hazy blue horizon.

I step again and admire the angular little yacht and assume, now that’s one candy Windmill. The hull is polished and radiates within the morning sunshine. A better look contained in the boat reveals high-tech ropes meticulously spliced and led by means of micro blocks with a no-grams-spared stage of perfection. Two-hundred kilos all-up, slim, slab-sided and hard-chined, I’m instructed, this Windmill is an old-school reaching rocket.

That is one in every of eight Windmill dinghies rigged up and ready for wind on the Helly Hansen Crusing World Regatta Collection in St. Pete. Loitering underneath close by palms is a tightknit clan of devotees, led by native sailor Lon Ethington. As previous Windmill class president, he volunteers to present me a Windmill 101. “It’s a planing dinghy,” he says, with a beam of smile framed by a good white beard. “It’s simply aircraft enjoyable!” Get it? And sure, that’s the class motto. – Full story