Skandia Team GBR

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

The Last Bridesmaid...

Well actually I was chief video-er at Claires sisters (Joy and Neil) wedding last wek in Devon (hence no posts..sorry forgot to Pause the blog!)...

Anyway had a great time with the family in sunny and rainy Devon (scenery pics are on Flickr), got back Friday, chilled Saturday and then Sunday it was the last Enterprise Event of the year for me and James.... Draycote Water Enterrpise Open Meeting.

Morning dawned, a good F3 and sunshine... got to Draycote with 15 other intrepid Enterprises and their associated 30 Ent sailors, had the very traditional sausage bap and very strong coffee, briefing and then off out onto the water!

Race 1
Had a good start but we were all pushing it a little, general recall straight off the bat :-)

Black Flag flying (DSQ if your over the line in the last 1 min in case you didnt know) and we are all a little more careful. Just to punish us for being eager, the wind started to drop (and continued to for the rest of the day...) Didn't have a great start and the first beat was an absolute mare... wind from the north swinging well and shifting like a bugger under the damn wall, rounded in a dissapointing 8-10 place... sod this we thought, found the right gear and promptly cruised passed four boats (to windward in light/fickle winds) ahh thats better upto about 5th/6th.

The race continued, wind slowly dropping and we gained a place or so and dropped a place or so... thereb were a number of incidents, some dodgy moves and crashes at marks which were interesting but not spectacular, but the conditions were very trying and it was difficult to predict the shifts or even get on the right side of then...for me anyway!

Phil Kirk won, Jon second, Graham Kirkup 3rd...

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Race 2
This was back to back, with the wind drifting away it was a good idea... there was barely enough breeze to start and I really mean barely enough, we had a horrible start but got out to the right of middle quiickly with some half decent roll-tacks and into clear wind to try and make our way upwind sensibly in the whisper of a breeze. We managed to get onto the right side of some shifts and broke away with Jon into 2nd place about half way up the first beat. The triangle was pretty much cat and mouse with us hard on Jon's transom, trying to get the extra half-boat gain need to get an overlap etc etc, I like that kinda intense sailing, although not in such light winds with 4 boats hard on your heals as well!

Basically the race continued, the wind got even more dodgy and up the last beat, we had a couple of chance to pass Jon but "just missed", then Jon and Alex got on the right side of a shift, us on the wrong side and he jumped ahead by way too much, with us then left trying desperately hard to stay in tune with something and keep ahead of Steve and Cossey...

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Well by the top half of the beat things were looking shakey, the zone that we had been in had evaporated in the weird Autumn heat (it was a beautiful day) and the bugger, Steve, got pas us up by the windward mark, the race was shortened to the gybe mark and I couldn't get back past him gggrrr, still 3rd place isn't too bad (but annoying I let 2nd slip past), I guess Steve and Chessie were getting me and James back for the 720 penalty I gave him at the first mark... we tacked on the lay-line from port to starboard, the boat rolled through the tack (of course), hence we were effectively another couple of feet wider at the top of the mast and of course kerchang.. masts collided.....

Jon 1st, Steve 2nd, us 3rd

So, we were sent in after race 2. Grabbed some lunch (more coffee and more sausage baps!) the water was getting like glass in the autumnal sunshine, more coffee and then that was it Race 3 canned, the breeze wasn't coming back, so quick shower, boat packed away and then we (me and James) met up with our respective familes, Oood an dahhhd over James's baby (Callum)chatted, had a couple of drinks... Prize Giving:

1st Jon and Alex
2nd Ant and James
3rd Phil Kirk and Tom Sully

Thanks James it was a great last sail of the year (a bit frustrating at time)...

The off a load of us went to the Dun Cow pub in Dunchurch for a meal seeing as this was the last decent Ent event of the year that we were all gonna be at so Me, Claire, Rowan, Flynn, James, Nat, Callum, Jon, Jules, Alex, Youngy and Ali all sat down in a busy pub on a Sunday evening for a great meal and drinks and chats and then off we went across the four winds home...

That's it for any major events this year.. the only sailing reports you're gonna get from me for the rest of 2006 are the possible odd Solo outing, maybe (if it isnt too cold) with the kids and maybe if I'm lucky a yacht in some other kind of boat if I'm asked and available.. so thats all folks...

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2 comments:

Tillerman said...

Good to hear from you again. Some of us were wondering if you had disappeared into Second Life, never to be seen again in the real world. Hope you do get some more sailing in this year...

Ant said...

I'm sure I will, not been in 2nd life that much, its fun, just set-up a Second Life Soulsailor RAcing Association... come join me...! Well maybe... its certainly fun, I'm off now to find out how much it will cost me to buy a yacht to live on and bum around the Second Life oceans...