Ent Nationals 2003 - Us

Well, 17th, we were 13th last year, picked up 2 woodies, with arguably a better fleet racing in the top 20.... so what went wrong, well really we did, we are jointly responsible for getting the plastic greenhouse (well its hardly a wooden shed) round the course as fast as possible.

Excuses
Well, our new boat was picked up on the day before the Nationals, and with no practise race there was no time to get used to it - not a good start.

Lack of sea sailing, we dont do enuff sea sailing, the last time we sailed on the se was probably last years nationals and the Irish nationals...

Non Sailing - Work, well most of us have to do it to fund our mad obsession for gettin wet, unfortunately for us we both spent the week before the event and the weekend agonising over job changes/issues.

Basically we just didn't sail as well as we should... brains not in gear or summat. We could blame the boat, but its plastic, same mould as the one we had 2 weeks ago (which bloody came 2nd!) and our original rig, sails and foils.... so thats not really fair...

If anyone who was sailing round us has any suggestions then please let us know!

Notable Incidents
Well our new boat is still in one piece, just... but here is a couple of the more notable incident we managed to get involved with...

Gate Start - I think this was just due to more junior sailors lack of gate start knowledge... we were stacked up for a pretty good early gate start towards the end of the regatta, just approaching the gate boat / guard boat entorage at full pace, close hauled when someone decide to bear down on us to try and barge through the gate... we collided (maybe some shouting occured?!) James ended up almost sitting on their sidetanks, not a fast start for us, still they did their turns so thats summat...

Starboard Lay Line - This was just scary, there was a fair breeze blowing, we were on the starboard layline approaching the mark, when our friends Baz & Julie approached us on port, I saw them check out where we were (this was corroberatted afterwards) but did they bear away, did they tack under us, did they even tack in our water.. nope just kept on in blind hope that although I was in fact aiming directly at them that i would some how miss them... well in the interest of saving lives, fiberglass and protests I ended up slamming a tack in to avoid T-Boning them (nearly hitting another boat behind us) and shouting a lot (James wasn't happy about that - 1st and last argument of this years Nats!).... well once everyones heartbeats had got down to treble figures, Barry did his turns and everything was back 2 normal.....

What the F*$! - This was great, we were ambling down the run in the last 20 or so boat lengths before the leward mark, we had gone low (again) and were coming up under Malcolm Lunn, we were getting quite close (the boats) and I gently reminded him that he needed to keep clear... a little later boom against my head.... again I informed Malcom that he should really be keeping clear and not twatting me round the head with his boom... ... I was not laughing now... at all. Again I reminded him less quietly that a) he should keep clear and b) his boom was bloody hard against my head (or words to that effect), he told me that it was in the rules that he could do this.. if I or anyone find that rule I promise to buy Malcom (and the person who found it) a pint. Then just to stop me crying with pain and turn them into tears of laughter he asked for water, I looked under the boom , and we were about 3 boat length away from it, so I told him what he could do with the water and that he should really think about getting his boat round the mark and up the piggin' beat... why the hell I didn't protest him I don't know... I think we had gone soft last week, maybe that was the problem...

So thats about it, or rather I'm tired and need to go to bed... more rambling on the Nationals later in the week if I think of anything good to say!