Last Saturday night Sean and I played in the second of two test games with our game club, ECAMGA, at Ernie's house. Ernie, of
Architects of War fame, was trying out some of his scenery and some homemade skirmish rules for WWII. The first picture shows a shot from my son's anti-tank unit barely missing my Sherman. Of course, I had just taken out his mortar unit a few turns earlier and you can see his reaction in the next photo:
It can be fun to show a 15 year old that his old man can sometimes figure out his schemes! Check out the cool explosion pieces Ernie came up with - very creative. I think he'll be posting a more detailed write up of the game on his
blog so I will not go into a lot of details here, except to say the rules were a lot of fun. As with any game at his house, the scenery and miniatures where top notch. I should point out that the machine gun nest terrain piece proved to be very deadly in the game. You might want to pick one up while supplies last. Ernie assured me that the fabulous dice rolling that occurred when the damn thing shot at us is a function of the kit itself and not just luck.
Last weekend was a busy one for Sean and I - he had a two-day regatta (Sat/Sun) and we squeezed the game in on Saturday night. The regatta went well for Sean - he placed third in his class (full rig lasers). The weather on Sunday was pretty bad - 25 - 30mph winds and 3 foot seas so sailing was very rough. At one point his boat cartwheeled and he got catapulted 15 or so feet out into the water. Most of the boats had some minor hull damage and/or ripped sails but nothing major. The only damage we sustained was a snapped tiller extension but Sean had a blast.
Wow! Cartwheeling in a sailboat?! Now that's putting sailboarding to shame. Glad your boy came out okay - placed 3rd to boot. Regards, Dean
ReplyDeleteA Laser can cartwheel if the bow submarines into a wave while the boat's going fast. It sounds scarier than it is, but every sport carries some form of risk. It tough on the mast step (where the mast is joined to the boat) but we were lucky and ours held.
ReplyDeleteSean has taken up sailing as "his" sport and is becoming very serious about it - it's a rewarding aspect of parenting to watch your child want to really excel at something.
The wooden boat in the lower right of the picture is a Penguin class boat - they are very pretty to look at but tough to sail well.
Cart wheeled a laser, now thats the spirit, good stuff! Wont be long and you can stick him on a moth, he'll be riding so high out of the water wont have to worry about nosing her in, skiffs are the way to go if he wants to stay on one hull. I finished up on the older moth design but the new ones are absolutely fantastic, bow wands and adjustable hydrofoils, oops I think I may have made your retirement boat a bit shorter, sorry.
ReplyDeleteregards
pp
Good lord those are some fast sailors. I looked up a moth website (http://www.mothna.com) and they are fabulous.
ReplyDeleteI probably shouldn't let the boy see this!
Hopefully he'll stick with laser's for a few years so he can master his skills
Then again those moth's look like a wild ride. I wonder if a 48 year old can skipper one of 'em?
Fell like I've just hit nirvana - gaming and sailing all in one post how much better does it get? :o))
ReplyDeleteMiles - I do a lot of sailing near one of the most competitive sailing clubs in the country and there's always 2 or 3 Moths out - they scare the living bejezus out of me, and I sailed (& crashed and cartwheeled!) short boards (windsurfers) for years... what also gets you is how quiet they are, they suddenly shoot past your left shoulder as your minding your business, no warning at all, no noise... great fun to watch though - tacking is an art form! :o)
Steve - I've only discovered three sailing wargamers - Paint Pig Dave, yourself and me. Unfortunately we are scattered across the globe but there may be more in hiding!
ReplyDeleteNo races this weekend, we've got some boat maintenance, Sean wants to practice his starts and I've got to finish up my WWI ships. All-in-all a pretty good weekend.
Those moth's do look to be very difficult to tack but boy do they fly!
My sailing is restricted to hiring an old surfcat off the beach every second summer nowadays. I started on holdfasts (sabots in US I think) a few other classes then moths, though back in the day they were UK moths then changed to international moths (I think) which were getting pretty speedy. What they have become now is utterly unimaginable from when I was on them. I think you would have to have a good system worked out to tack, land-taxi-come about-taxi-takeoff, does that sound about right Steve?
ReplyDeleteMy nautical adventures nowadays are more like putt'n out to the estuary islands in my dinghy, laying out a chair and pretending I'm fishing.
I saw Steves posts on the old Thames barge, absolutely fantastic. They do a similar sort of thing down in Sth Aust. with old coastal cutters and on Sydney Harbour (three masted). Definitely need to book on to one of these, there is nothing better than spending the day under sail!
regards
pp
pp - absolutely right - they're so slick they don't even stop - it's more like a windsurfer, they almost carve it in a curve through the eye of the wind and then slip over to the other side half way through, whereas on a normal boat it almost stops as it goes through the eye and everything happens in a more step by step manner ...
ReplyDelete