A kick up the eighties.....the scent of a Sigma.

[capnsensible]

There must be a few on here who have boats from the seventies and eighties despite most posts being about more modern craft. My liveaboard boat is from 1977....
But for the past five days I've been charging around on a fab 1985 Sigma 33. Now this is a class I used to race on waaay back in......the 80's out of Helensburgh. One I sailed was a day old when I took it off around the Clyde.
Back to topic. The owners are new to sailing, hence me running a course for them. And hence the question ' do all old boats smell like this?' . Well, yup! However sailing like a big dinghy in brisk winds but flattish seas around Lanza this week was a great memory of my younger life. And today it even rained with squally gusts to bring Scotland to 28N.

So all you Sigma owners, what a great yacht you have! But the smell......

[Baggywrinkle]

I remember the smell of my parents Kingfisher 20+, it was a mixture of warm damp sleeping bag, slightly musty/mouldy, mixed with the smell of not quite cured fiberglass resin .... and in the morning, that was masked by camping gas mixed with the sulphurous smell of spent matches - all with a salty briney smell of scottish mud or seaweed.

What joy ..... I do like my AWB in the Med, no smells at all except when opened up at the begining of the season - then it smells of dehumidifiers with a slight hint of petrol from the Honda generator.

[V1701]

Kevin Turvey...

[capnsensible]

Ones sense of smell can certainly provoke memories. As is remembering what I was doing in the era of Kevin Turvey!

[DJE]

Madame can be a bit obsessive about keeping our boat clean and taking just about everything home for the winter and a wash. But it has to be said that we avoid that distinctive smell of just about all the bachelor boats that I have sailed on. The previous boat was a Sadler from the eighties but free of pongs.

[Uricanejack]

If it wasn’t for an 80s boat with a few annoying drips and a slight pong.
I wouldn’t have a boat and wouldn’t be going sail at all.

Fabric bits removed for winter

And it’s still fun to sail an old IOR into the wind. Elderly C&C are still popular here even if some do pong a bit.
I wonder how it would stack up against a Sigma?

[Resolution]

My ownership of a Sigma 33 for nearly ten years provided loads of vivid memories. But, strangely enough, not one of endemic smells, which is odd because the interior certainly took a battering from wet sail changes and once from a failed shaft seal. Being very seasick, I must have chucked in the heads something like 50 times en route to or from regattas in Ireland and the Channel Islands and the West Country. And one delivery crew arrived at Crosshaven with the heads blocked and the bilges swilling, so we just kept pouring in harpic at one end and pumping the bilge out until it was clean again, heaven help the fish in the river. Through all this the interior remained delicately fragrant, I think.

[Elessar]

There must be a few on here who have boats from the seventies and eighties despite most posts being about more modern craft. My liveaboard boat is from 1977....
But for the past five days I've been charging around on a fab 1985 Sigma 33. Now this is a class I used to race on waaay back in......the 80's out of Helensburgh. One I sailed was a day old when I took it off around the Clyde.
Back to topic. The owners are new to sailing, hence me running a course for them. And hence the question ' do all old boats smell like this?' . Well, yup! However sailing like a big dinghy in brisk winds but flattish seas around Lanza this week was a great memory of my younger life. And today it even rained with squally gusts to bring Scotland to 28N.

So all you Sigma owners, what a great yacht you have! But the smell......

I remember my first Guernsey trip in a sigma 36. Before that I had had only done it in a bilge keel mirage 28. I couldn’t believe how fast the sigma was. I wanted to do a lap of the island when we arrived because the crossing was over too soon.
We then had a week there with wind and sun. “Brochure sailing” I called it. Late 80s but I remember it clearly a true holiday great.
Bloke on the end of my pontoon a couple of weeks ago had one with a stubby bathing platform - a 360??? Anyway still a good looking boat. Being a bloke myself and probably the one who made the smell I wouldn’t notice that bit.

[Teko]

My leisure 27 (previously comrade red's)is from 1979 still has the original cushions and engine. Cant afford to replace either so plenty of fabreeze and air fresheners to mask 40years smells!

[Kukri]

The scent of a Sigma in the Eighties...?

Styrene, beer, vomit and jock strap.