Skandia Team GBR

Sunday, September 17, 2006

Southport 24hr Race 2006

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Jeeze that was a kool weekend. Soulsailor has successfully navigated the drunken, team building, sailing megathon of Southport... 

Its wicked and I wanna do it again next year (best ask Claire and the kids first!), had a great time and had a good sail...

Saturday morning...

Steve arrived at around 9:30 (thanks very much for the lift), after getting slightly lost...
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Headed for the motorway...joined the motorway and then parked up for 45 mins.. arse... big accident, motorway paused I'm not gonna make the start! We got going eventually, listened to some damned funky tracks (what was that CD Steve?) and rolled into Southport at around 1:20pm Saturday... race started, me meant to be on 2nd and I haven't got a freaking clue what boat, where "base" is or anything....thankfully Jon and Alex decided they was gonna be 2nd on the water and take over from Richy Adams and Jules (who were sailing in the biggest breeze and going pretty good).. I had another few hours to acclimatize, have a beer, meet people and get changed...oh yeah and work out who the funk was crewing me!!

Richy Adams & Jules did the start, I was meant to be in 2nd slot but the M6 jam screwed that up so Jon and Alex racked up for that.. when Jules came in and we done the first changeover nice and smoothly, Jules pointed me in the direction of my crew...

Joan

Joan from little Scotland, cool, there was a good breeze blowing, hopefully it would stay up (it didn't) and Joan and me would be perfect..nice one... right need a drink need some food need to work out what's goin' on..!

Rest of Saturday...

Southport was kicking, loads of people, we'd got Charles's big tent as a base (and my crash pit eventually!!) tea and coffee making stuff.. we brought a BIG POT of Flying Saucer sweets, bottle of Gin and a bottle of  tonic and 10 beers for the team..

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So the plan was for me and Joan to sail at 4pm - 6pm a good time to sail....except that means that I have to do 4am - 6am... eek! Well I wanted to do a night shift so I guess I can't complain...

So watched some sailing chatted with the guys 'n gals, had a beer and a bite to eat then kit on and waiting impatiently for our sailing shift to start.. I hadn't got a clue what the boat was like, apparently it was "sea-worthy" and was going forwards! Mostly thanks to Youngy's sails, thanks Paul... We were going well, breeze was dropping which was a bummer, we had started in the 3rd flight and were up in the 20's on the water so things were fine..

So its time... suns out there's a breeze, could be better and I'm ready an almost excited at having a yacht.... in comes Jon and Alex, we did a crap change-over got in and got off OK, but in the "mess" I grabbed the wrong end of the main and flapped around for too bloody long, but we soon got started settled in and started getting into our stride. I really like sailing with "new crews" makes you think more.. the course was crap 'cus of the wind... reach....tack.... fetch..tack once or twice...run (gybe at some point) and back onto the reach! So we had a good sail, with so many boats (70+) on such a small lake the tactics are all around staying in breeze keeping out of dirty wind and having a clean race.. @ Southport you don't do turns you take 1/4 lap penalties!!

So me and Joan got down to business, the boat, despite its age etc was going quite well, we had a couple of good laps when we were getting used to each other, then we had a really crapper of one (although its not actually noticeable if you look at the lap times recorded!) then we got into a pretty perfect groove... when you sail with Joan at Southport go low and fast....she likes that!

So into the groove, the afternoon drifting by.. saw Steve on the shore, shouted to him for two beers next lap.... next lap he was sat there with MJ looking dumb, yeah dude wer're serious... next lap (sailing low and fast), hugged the shore near where they were and they tossed a couple of Fosters tinnies.. nice... so we're going fast, having fun and got beer! Southport is perfect! So we were re-hydrated, Youngy was getting ready to take over at about 5:50pm, I was having a freakin great time so told them we'd do two more laps.. figured we shouldn't push our luck + we'd be getting hungry by 6:15pm... two more good laps and in we come... good change over this time and off Youngy and Shona went into the Southport evening.... checked the results and looked like we'd managed to get up to the low 20's..pleased with that.. thanks Joan...

So got changed, hooked up with Steve to grab some food before he hit the water at 10pm.. decided to go get a BBQ and some food to cook...perfect idea; except for in Southport they stop celebrating Summer at the end of August..no BBQ's so off to Pizza-Hut 2 fekin large pizzas and back to the "base-tent" cracked open the G&T eat Pizza chilling on an Ent roadbase and some deck-chairs.. watching the sun go down the harvest moon come up and chatting to our friends and fellow competitors.. perfect!

Helped with the changeover of Youngy and Shona coming off and Charles and Caroline going on, darkness consuming the boats except for the little light sticks on the shrouds and the floodlights from the shore, Youngy got changed then came and helped finish of the alcohol and of course our Pizza!

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So, more chat, eat more flying-saucers, wandered the bars more drink more chatting; Steve went sailing, the band started warming up..then quiet... someone apparently plugged in an extra chip-fryer and the electrics went pop... no power... no band.. flaming gutted... so by around 11:30pm (allegedly) I was chilled, happy and very merry... with no band playing and the thought of trying to get some sleep before sailing again at 4am it was bed time... Alex escorted me or told me to go to bed (can't remember).. so after crashing in my sleeping bag on the floor of Charles tent, then complaining I had something hard in my pocket! (phone, wallet and camera!) I drifted rapidly off to sleep...

Easy like Sunday Morning...?

Phone twatted me in the head at 3am with its bloody alarm... now Caroline was lying next to me in her sleeping back.. jeeze must have slept soundly to miss a changeover of girls in the tent! struggled to get up, couldn't find my flip-flops so stumbled bare-footed across the "campsite" to the club in search of strong coffee and a bacon sarnie to either numb my senses or wake me up... saw Joan on the way and she sorted me with lots of coffee and butties... back to the tent..changed and off to the launch pad for our 4am stint...

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Went into the club, saw Richard Adams and a few others swaying in the non-existent breeze beer sloshing inside and out... they needed sleep and coffee more than me! Apparently Jon was a little worried that we, well I, wouldn't turn up after last years farce... but I was there on time called him in and off we went.

Sailing in the dark is great apart from not being able to see the tell-tales...we sailed OK, lost a few places, gained a few, not particularly happy with our boat speed and our tactics weren't quite in the groove of earlier, but things weren't too bad and the sailing was fun... around 5am if I remember rightly we cam across the back of the islands, boats seemed to be catching us so we figured there must be weed on the centerboard... Joan lifted it, I checked the rudder, then she said she couldn't get it down.. it was stiff, she tugged at it hard but nothing.. I had a go and couldn't shift it... Joan tried it again nothing still stiff and stuck UP, fine for downwind but crap for the long fetch! I passed the tiller and main over to Joan and gave it an almighty two handed tug:

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Fcuk.. I ripped the bloody handle and top edge of the board clean off... crap that's not gonna be fast..... we carried on down the rest of the reach and the next short broad leg, then went onto the long tighter leg past the club etc.. what the hell were we gonna do. Couldn't see anyone we knew by the clubs.... decided we'd sail low by the tent shout a lot for anyone and if that didn't work we'd have to capsize the boat on one of the slips and manual pull the bastard board down... so "Charles, Jon, Youngy, Alex" was shouted and off we slid, slightly sideways on round the lap hoping someone heard us.... managed to just hold our place on the next lap (well done Joan) and as we rounded the mark by the change-over zone we could see Charles and Jon waiting for us, we sailed in, dragged the boat partly out the water and put some board down from the outside, shoved off (Shona wasn't there they couldn't find her to do the changeover!)  Joan produced a beer, we needed that this was way too stressful... we sailed the next lap pretty well, happy with our performance but pissed off with the boat... next lap they still hadn?t found Shona.. ok the sun may have been coming up, dawn may have been appearing but we'd had enuff.. thankfully next lap 2 and a bit hours on they were there ready... pulled into the changeover area jumped out dragged boat up onto the shore tools were produced, and a spare centerboard, swapped board shoved Youngy and  Shona in and that was it for us..... hot shower and bed for a couple of hours catchup... sigh...nice...

So morning came hangover blasted away from the nights escapades, grabbed a coffee and bap from the club, caught up with the last few hours going on's then crashed at the tent.. Jon brewing top quality tea, croissants and flying-saucers with the team... nice morning was had watching the sailing, drinking tea and chatting.

Steve went on last.. sailed well but got a 1/4 lap penalty (arse) for hitting the back of a GP14 (well we all want to do that sometimes!) and then that was it... firing of the 12pm cannons just as we were finishing our lunch of coffee and chilli-and-rice... bit of a kick to keep me going...

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So that was it, we came 32nd, did 79 laps and averaged 18mins 19 secs per lap...

I think we all had a bloody good time... thanks for everyone who went, thanks for Steve and his car for the lift, thanks for Joan and her beers for crewing me so well and thanks for everyone for there help and support, tent, tea bags and packing me off to bed at the right time... THANKS!

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Next year we might use a decent boat and go for some trophies....maybe...

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3 comments:

Fuff said...

Looks like you had a fab time. Flying saucers and all.

Tillerman said...

Classic Soulsailor stuff. But you don't really like Foster's do you?

Ant said...

When the boats going around for 24hrs and your shouting at a mate from a boat to the sure to get beer before you get back 18 mins later (avg lap time) and the bars heaving (5pm) then you gets what yer given!