Easter Monday Madness

Update 2/4:  Andrew F sent me the following photo, taken a couple of seconds before the start of the race at the business end of the line.  432 is clearly preparing for an almighty pump, the ISO is nearly up to speed.  Any comments about 432 being OCS will be heavily moderated!

  
The final race of the Easter weekend today.  The met office were forecasting a cold easterly f5-6, and again they were spot on. We sailed from 15:00 or so:

The cold weather and water must have put a few off, we had 10 boats sailing today. 

The start was a very orderly affair, whilst the pin end was again very biassed the number of boats sailing made for an easier start for most.  Then we had a lovely jaunt round the harbour, seemingly reaching for at least 80% of the course.  I could tell that the assymetrics were just loving the white sail reaches.

Some highlights of the day:

- Andy and stand in crew Simon had an interesting race in their ISO, but kept it together to lead the fleet to the finish.  There were a couple of boat handling incidents on the first downwind leg (more on this later), but they stayed upright and fast.  Andy had this to say after the race (and I am in no way making this up): "Given the cold conditions I decided to wear three wooley jumpsuits under my drysuit today.  I was warm, but found it difficult to move around the boat whilst having the flexibility of  a michelin man."  Time to invest in some SuperTherm Andy.

- Mike and Emma were subject to another Significant Grounding today, whilst trying to avoid the shenanigans in ISO 1037.  They had a full mast-in-the-mud-and-boom-in-the-mud experience.  Emma was not happy:

(Emma is on the right, highlighting the mud on the mast.  Training-partner-Claire is on the left, and looks as if she has spotted a bar that might supply her first glass of Blue Nun of the day)

-  The rescue boats had a busy day, superbly manned by Noel, Robin, Alex and Angela.  It is cold in those patrol boats, but they were out till the end.  And kudos to those who made it round the course in those conditions despite a few capsizes, it was windy and everyone did well to get back in one piece!

- A special thanks to Sarah ad Jonathon in the race hut, excellent race management and a superb choice of course (read the 300 report later to find out why).

Thats it at Slipper for the next couple of weeks, the tides are wrong next week and there is a Feva/Tera open the week after.  But with BST kicking in maybe it is time to start evening sailing.