International Canoe Open at Blithfield Sailing Club
by Gareth Caldwell 10 Jun 2015 07:56 BST
6 June 2015
A one day open meeting was held at Blithfield Sailing Club on 6th June. This was one of the first IC events to be held at Blithfield for quite a few years and, despite the forecast, sailors travelled from as far afield as Plymouth and Newcastle. A fleet of ICs were even triple stacked and delivered from West Kirby.
The different designs of individual ICs were discussed at length, the wind conditions checked (steady force 6), the sail shapes compared, the wind conditions checked (now a force 7), the bacon sandwiches eaten, the wind conditions checked (now gusting 30mph), the pros and cons of jib booms discussed, the wind conditions checked (now gusting 34mph), and the sailing abandoned for the day. This gave the sailors time to demolish the jacket potatoes and licence to decide what should happen to the wine prizes.
Windguru was proven to be accurate to the minute!
A few sailors stayed over to have an informal sail tuning session on the Sunday morning in a far more sailable breeze.
Thanks to Blithfield SC for hosting the event, to the volunteers who provided rescue, OD and food, and to those sailors who travelled despite of a poor weather forecast.