Me and James, well we dragged ourselves upto Nottingham SC -its a cool location by the Watersports centre, and its on the river, making for very interesting sailing!
3 races, dodging canoes, pleasure cruisers, barges and pointly-rowers (and each other) in a slowly increasing breeze, which had all the nornmal, patchy, gusty, shifty unpredicatability that Nottingham always has :-)
So, lets get on with proper stuff... 8 or 9 boats entered, about 1/2 as much as last year... were the other 1/2 the sensible ones... I'm still not sure.... greased up with sun lotion, sunnies on and my bandana (noone has really said whether I look a tosser in it or not??), James and I, defending last years win (I evenm remembered to polish the trophy) set out....for... our worst race yet :-(
So the vague report and overall results for what was, on all accounts a very interesting day @ the office!
Race 1
The course was basically, sail down the river, sort of bneating and reaching, take the furthest mark to port, sail all the way back down the river past the club and down to the weirs and the watersport centre, dodging lulls and all the aforementioned craft that swarm the Nottingham waterways....take that mark to port and keep going till the OOD releases you from racing in hell... (could be possibly classed as a worse/trickier place to sail than Brookvale but on a bigger (more picturesque) scale?? Comments welcome!
We all got a clean start, ours was mid line, hoping to be able to take advantage of the breeze from wherever it cam form... it came from both sides and we were well and truly stuffed, no speed and boat sailing under and over us... truly appaling, by the top of the long beat we wetre about 6th out of 8 and not happy bunnies @ all.. an uneventful run, saw a couple of the home club boats, Mike Cossey and Youngy ahead...by too much.
The second beat saw the breeze fill in a tad, and we had a better time of it, tacking on the right shifts at the right time to get through to 3rd, behind Paul....we continued to pursue him, confident that we'd get past him real soon...we didn'y.. 3rd would ahve to suffice! :-( well sailed Cossey and Youngy....
Then a pleasant lunch watching the world and the boats drift by, catching some well needed rays, life despite the result in the morning was good...
Race 2
The course was the same, bit more breeze but just the same type of breeze, up, down, left, right etc etc. the OOD managed to even get a bleedin great pleasure boat to wait for us to start before he chuggged up the river.. respect!
Better start this time, not brilliant but better...same suspects had a damn good race this time, frustrating at times, but things were closer and we were feeling a bit more in our groove... up one of the "beats", me an' James started hallucinating..well we think we did - we both claim, independantly, to have seen a green & yellow lizard-like creature swimming up river with us....we were definately not bleedin' capsizing here! It looked to me like the head of one opf those "water-dragons" I hope it wasn't as I guess its not likely to survive through the winter... bizzare, truly bizzare... maybe the heat was gettin to us???
By the end of the race me an' James had managed to pull into the lead, with Youngy again 2nd and Cossey 3rd.. role reversals"
So, after a bit more rehydration an asessment of whether we wanted to do the next race and risk gettin' killed my a water-dragon etc etc, we launched and went for it...
The results for the day so far meant that any of the top four boats could win the series if they one the last race... no pressure guys :-)
Race 3
Just 2 make sure we didn't end up drifting around Nottingham all evening (pleasant thoughj it would have been), the OOD shortened the course a bit so no trips down to the watersports centre in this one....
Again it was a clean start this time - we managed to get a failrly well timed clubhouse bank start (BTW the start line is from one bank of the river 2 the other) tacked clear onto port in abit of breeze and it was our best start of the day (when it really matterd).... we managed to keep a clear lead for the remainder of the race, things hotted up behind with the ret of the fleet having a cracking close race. Cossey decided to bow out for an early shower after hitting a dreaded whole fairly badly... well he'd clinched 2nd overall, so may as well enjoy the sunshine! Inn the end, Paul managed to get 2nd in the race, just... and the day was over...
So we, Ant & James won... a good day in the office, Mike Cossey & Christine was 2nd with a 1st and a 3rd and Paul & Alex was 3rd with 2 2nd's... unlucky!
So after the usual Nottingham pleasantries of "tea and cakes", we had the prize giving - me and James got a bottle of wine each V nice and the trophy again.... must remmeber to polish it again next year...
[Listening to: Superstylin' - Groove Armada - Fatboy Slim - Big Beach Boutique II (04:06)]
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