Midland Areas...maybe

So, heres a brief, very biased summary of the Midland Areas....

Nottingham, Midland Areas and part of the National series... no breeze, postponements, a couple of bottles of beer in the sun for me and James, then we went off to try and get a race in...

So, hardly any breeze, and I really mean no breeze, the race got under way, pin-end looked favoured but V messy, the wind was swinging and basically either end could probably make the "windward mark"! Gun goes, we started next to Gez (wooden, not plastic yacht today) and headed pretty much upto the mark, with the yachters at the other end also drifting direct to the mark. It was pretty much swings and roundabouts for that leg and we rounded just behind the front bunch in 6th, with Jonathan Lyle (home-boy) and the Frys just behind, Honnor, Woody, Anne and a few others...

After some nifty footwork, attempting to dodge the very very spurious wind-holes, we managed to gain a few more places and then, slowly, on the 2nd lap, on the 2nd errmm reach/beat/run thing, we managed to pull up close behind the leaders and, as the breeze turned into a beat managed to negotiate into the lead..wahyhey...
..and they shortened the race
..and we lapped Ges

So we won, cool, 1st race of the Midland areas and we were winning...SoulSailor Racing Association were in the lead :-)

Then the wind died...completely, so that was it for the Saturday, so we finished the day as "overnight leaders!" nice...

So, it was James birthday, happy birthday matey, and my dads 60th, so we drove back down south so some pub for a bit of a fanmily bash and left the rest of the yachters to drink the bar dry....! We had a very pleaeant evening, damn fine T-bone steaks, some beer, some champagne and a very nice 20-odd yr old whiskey... groovy... then a phone call from Mr.Woodward, informing us that I'd won the prize-draw, but as I wasn't at the club, I couldn't claim it and Al Fry bloody won it Ggggrrrr...

So, Sunday dawned...we drove up the A46 towards Nottingham, the sun shone, the music was on, but there was a distinct lack of breeze... and well basically thats the picture for the rest of the day.. come about 12:30 they decide to can the open meeting :-(

So, despite other events having the sailing instructions "amended" to preserve the weekend, this particular one didn't get the special treeatment...So...
1) Midland Areas postponed to be re-sailed ata later date
2) Open Meeting canned
3) National Series points... to either be re-sailed or lost...

So that was it we went from overnight leaders of a pretty important weekends yachting to bugger all in a matter of hours....

Not happy, but not too bitter, we did the prizegiving for the one race, got a wine glass and a voucher for a pair of Gill sunnies each, not completely wasted but well, what do you say, another day another race..well Grafam this weekend anyway, fingers crossed 4 some more luck, wind and personally!

Anyway hope you guys enjoyed yourselves for some reason last weekend, see you this weekend - it'll probably be force 5 and freezing :-(