More breeze today - well just, again it was light an' variable. Hangovers in the dinghy park were evident even after coffee and bacon sarnies... must have been a good evening, didn't hear any rumour or gossip or see any dodgy photos I'm afraid.... a few lucky punters won an assortment of "Typhoon gear", unfortunately James didn't... but if we believe him, he was tucked up in his (i think) sleeping bag before midnight... damned proffessional!
Only 2 races to get through, back to back, positions were fairly close going into the first race so things were never going to be easy! Well for us the first beat was OK, round around 5th(ish), first run was slow for all, but ok, and when we finally got down, there was a tad of a raft building up, we had a fairly good line in but bloody great bang (from someone that didn't have water or a hope in hells chance of gettin round the mark), and a slight splintering of expensive gunwale and we'd been T-boned from the "North"... lots of shouting, confusion and unfortunatley for us, place losses....
Really weird thing was, when we got in after the 2nd race, packing the boat up and sticking a plaster on her bruised side, 2, yep TWO people came upto us and apologised for twatting us.... come on guys... lets not all rush to be so pleased for hittin us, especially as no bugger did any turns! Joke time: So there was Ant&James, A Midlander and a Northerner all coming upto a leward mark, Ant&James give sufficient water for those that need it and then...Bang!.... you can finish the joke off, maybe add a southerner into it as well for good measure??? :-)
We managed to gain some composure part the way up the next beat and the rest of the race stayed fairly uneventful with us holding 8/9th position till the finish....did i mention that we missed the gate on the 2nd lap, no, OK we won't mention that then... bloody idiots! So after a fairly miserable start to the day, in fairly glorious weather, we ended up being DSQ'd... that'll be our disgard then please! The top 3 positions stayed fairly consistant, with Tim Sadler, Johnny W and Ges all up there....
So hoping for better fortune in the last race of the day, sun is out, breeze has upped slightly, nice conditions, better than being in the office or mowing the grass! Racing was as always, close and on the edge (for the conditions), we had a good 1st beat and made are way round the course in reasonable position.....again the leading 3 were starting to get a bit boring we got upto 4th, had some close racing with Johnny up a couple of the beats... down the final downwind leg we tried to bribe Johnny with a beer to luff the others a 'la Martin Honnor styleeee, but he's too professional to be bought with just 1 beer. We round the leeward mark close to Johnny, and a couple of tacks later we were legging it up the layline to the finish pretty much neck and neck, Johnny beating us by the length of his crew, Katie D's hair.... shame it wasn't my crew's (James) hair... we might have got it then!!
So game over... boat to bed, shower, bar for 2 pints of Orange with bottle-beer chasers for me and James... nice way to finish a pretty good day at the office for us both, please with 4th overall, not too bad for us... not too shabby at all!... Sampled the beer on the balcony concept again (with pork batch this time), definately think I can get used to that! Beer over, prize giving started... usual pleasantries and the end to a bloody good weekend, the wind was passabel, the course were sailable and the sun was fantastic...
So James walked away from the prize-giving with a handful of bottle beer and I had a half bottle of peach schnapps... well at least Claire likes the damn stuff...
The top handfull of results were as follows:
1st·········Tim Sadler & Richard Salt
2nd·········Johnny Woodward & Katie
3rd·········Ges Brown & Craig Wheatley
4th·········Ant Clay & James Holmes
5th·········Martin Honnor & Simon Haighton
It must be said that sportsman of the weekend must go to Martin Honnor for his valiant and succesful attempt in race 2 to gain us two places upto 4th, which, if he hadn't bothered would have meant that he would have been drinking peach schnapps tonite and not us.....is that a good things or a bad thing....best ask Claire...
So a great weekend was had by most, the hosts were great, competition as always was very good and very close....
weekend was rounded off nicely on my arrival home with a great water fight with my boy Rowan.... I won, but it must be said, for a three year old he has a bloody great aim with any of his weapons on choice... Water Pistol, Plant Sprayer and Eeyore!!!
[Listening to: Nice Weather for Ducks - Lemon Jelly - Lost Horizons (06:08)]
No comments:
Post a Comment