Osprey Southern Area Championships & Panmorra Cup at Mounts Bay

Osprey Panmorra Cup at Mount's Bay © Paul Carter

Osprey Panmorra Cup at Mount's Bay © Paul Carter

"Sermon on the Mount"

Blessed are the wonderful ladies of Mount's Bay Sailing Club who fed and watered us not with loaves and fishes but with delicious Chicken and Meringues for pud. This is often left to the end of the article but they were so lovely and work so hard it only seems right to bring them to the beginning. As the story goes the first shall be last and last shall be first etc etc.

The situation on the water was similar. On the windy, wavy Saturday the big lads were first but performed less well on the sabbath when the waters were calmer. On Sunday Basher Marshal parted the waves, to continue the analogy, and used the advantage of his slight but muscular frame to guide him and spray tanned Jonathan Osgood to a 1st & 2nd place on calmer waters. The two for one spray tan offer in North London finished last week so Osgood was pleased to be able to top up with a bit of real sun on Sunday.

After Bashers streaking shenanigans at Blithfield, Mrs Basher came along to keep an eye on him and to make sure he got to bed in good time - worked a treat, you may need to come to more events Mrs B.

This weekend was momentous for a number of reasons and I feel it's my duty to bring one of these to surface even if its just to keep Lord Justice Leveson busy. The rumour that Doc Ellery had disappear from our lives forever proved to be incorrect. Various members of the Flat Earth Society, which the Doc is a participating member of, had told stories of him living like a hermit with his two Ospreys in a barn, not seeing anyone and prescribing the application of a leech for all aliments brought to him by his patients.

I am delighted to report only the leech part of the above is true. The Doc now has a delightful Mrs Doc called Jo, who not only crewed for him but also brought with her a picnic basket containing sandwiches, pasties, crisp, cake and a large metal flask of tea. What was surprising is this went onboard the boat in a quest to keep his finely tuned body sustained between races. In order to counter balance the additional weight of the banquet he removed everything from the boat that was superfluous, which included the toe straps, which are now for sale on ebay marked as "only used once by Andy Barker but never by Doc Ellery"

Despite having three large square meals on board Doc and Mrs Doc showed us that the old magic was still there by arriving at the windward mark in the first race in second place and finishing third in race 4 on Sunday morning after a particularly heavy night on potato vodka back in the barn with posh George.

I should add that Mrs Doc is also a Doc and anyone finding themselves in need of medical treatment outside Mr Docs room should drag themselves a bit further down the passage to Mrs Docs room to get a more sympathetic ear and probably a more sensible diagnosis of the problem. Lovely to meet you Jo and we all look forward to seeing more of you on the circuit.

Saturday was windy with a good dose of waves and Stevie George and Mikey Greig showed us all how its done in these conditions. They are the proud owners of a stiffer mast (coated with some of the famous performance enhancing gel) and foil to counteract the addition extra muscle they have developed over the winter. They stormed away in the first race leaving us all for dust. The second race Martin Cooney and Peter Frith found their form to take the win after which they returned to the beach for a rest and an early shower. Race three went to Pete and I followed by Kevin Francis and Phil Male, who spent all weekend up at the front and always in the mix. These guys are good and need to be watched.

Terry Curtis and Tim Bowden in 1281 had a good weekend sailing well in both the heavy stuff on Saturday as well as the lighter wind on Sunday. Tim has really got himself fit this winter by competing in his local calf wresting championships, which the calf won, but the exercise has done his sailing the world of good. Terry spent the winter practising for this event at the OK Worlds in Thailand, which he finished 10th in.1281 has a new carbon rig, which looked very smart. Watch these two, they only need a bit more time in the boat and they will be up at the front.

It was great to see boats sailed by husband and wife combos, two father and daughter teams in Alex and Nick Willis as well as Katie and Richard Hattersley as well as a father and son team of George and Harry Odding. This was Katies first open meeting and she sailed really well and had a big grin on her face in every race all captured on the Gopro, which I'm sure will be played back to see if Dad did anything wrong! Its really important these teams continue to develop for the good of the class and we must all encourage more to do the same.

John Matthews was out there and as an ex National Champion had plenty of magic for the youth policy to learn from.

Martin Cooney & Pete Frith showed that the early shower on Saturday was not going to disadvantage them and took a 2nd & 1st place on Sunday in the light wind to keep Pete & I out despite the fact that I was concentrating really hard in both races, which is rare! Well done guys.

All in all it was the most fantastic weekend of sailing and socialising. I never want to leave Mounts Bay when I come down to sail there. It was even more of a wrench this time because we were in the chocolates which required receiving a prize from the lovely and famous Marathon runner, Mrs George!

Thank you to everyone at Mounts Bay for a great weekend. The Osprey Circus will be at Hayling Island next Saturday for the Glyn Charles Memorial Pursuit Race - come along and join in and lets try and convert some more to our wonderful boat.

Overall Results: