1. Claire dislocated her shoulder, crewing an ISO. And it had nothing to do with the helm.
2. Finn Junior European champion Pete McCoy comes back to his home club to sail a 400 with the legendary jager-bomb-consumer that is Alex Thorsby.
3. We had the longest race of the year, taking in all major channels in Chichester harbour.
All of the action this weekend happened in the Whitaker Cup, run by Emsworth SC on Sunday morning. The race involves a course that takes in all channels in the harbour, including Thorney and Itchenor. The first leg of the course was a 45 minutes beat, of which 30 minutes was on starboard, after which my legs had pretty much given up. The rest was upwind/downwind, not nice in a single sail boat.
Claire was sailing with Andy Gould in his ISO, and looked to be having a great race until they reached 'Star' in Thorney channel. Half way through a gybe Claire fell awkwardly and her shoulder dislocated. Fortunately a patrol boat was on hand to take her back to the club, and even more fortunately a doctor happened to be on the foreshore. He has apparently relocated a shoulder many times before, and did so for Claire as soon as she stepped ashore. I spoke with Claire later in the day, and despite the medicinal white wine consumption established that she is OK, but consigned to light sailing duties for the next month or so. If anyone knows who the ginger haired doctor is, please comment - Claire wants to say thank you.
Pete McCoy started sailing at Slipper and is now in the Olympic Development Squad in his Finn. He posted 23rd in the recent Finn Europeans, and was first Junior (which I think is under-21). Anyway all of that Finn sailing was clearly preparation for the club sailing on Sunday, which saw him pitch up in a 400 with local helm Alex Thorsby. It is great to see sailors come through the junior and youth sailing schemes at the club, and still make the time to come club racing, it gives a nice mix to the fleet. I note that the Thorsby/McCoy combo chose the demonstrate the latest thinking in lee shore landing technique :
I can only assume one of the following scenarios:
1. Space in the boat park is at such a premium that some boats must now moor with the tenders on the fringes of the harbour. And an arcane Harbour Byelaw means that they must be left with sails up.
2. The boat was still full of water from the capsize after the finish, making steerage difficult.
3. Alex was still slightly jager-bombed from Saturday night, and mistook a group of 20 tenders for a shingle foreshore.
My race was good. Dave was out in his 300 and we exchanged the lead several times through the race. He pipped me by 2 seconds at the finish in a 2 hour 11 minute race and took a deserved win in the 300 fleet, but I'm happy with my result given the f4-5 wind.
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