Volvo Noble Marine RS200 Nationals at Mount's Bay - Days 1-3

Volvo Noble Marine RS200 Nationals Day 2 at Mount's Bay © Alex & David Irwin / www.sportography.tv

Volvo Noble Marine RS200 Nationals Day 2 at Mount's Bay © Lee Whitehead / www.photolounge.co.uk

96 RS200 teams were also treated to a very friendly welcome to Mount's Bay Sailing Club. I like this sort of club. It has salty overtones, redolent of oilskin, neoprene, sweat and two-stroke.

All the (very friendly) (bar) staff are volunteers, and the place is small - tighter than a gnat's crotchet. Or even a wasp's Wendy. And our Commodore Clive and the RO Peter – both resplendent in Alan Partridge stay-press grey slacks and shiny-buttoned blue blazers – gave appositely short and cheersome introductions. All the boats are parked by the promenade, where interested (and frankly enormous) muggles amble past. When they ask I explain we're sailing to France.

Day 1 (Sunday) we had two full-on F4-5 with waves. Results and pictures around somewhere, probably below. The beau monde of the sailing world – great skin, teeth, hair, trust funds - are there in the top 20. And David Jessop (who may have gotten away with popping his bowsprit up Chris Martin's plop socket). Further back, there was a 5-boat flustercluck, with words flying as bitter as shards of gel coat. The race committee protested them, but all now resolved.

So, gate starts. You're supposed to be able to smell the breath of the guard boat driver's pasty-ed breath. It's all about finding the corridors of power and not the dark alleys I found. They smell of old wee. Get it wrong, and there are very few options to bin it onto port and retain any semblance of dignity.

Day 2 was an asthmatic, old dog's wheezing cough of a dying breeze. I somehow avoided the 'Duckhams Award' (a sort of Darwin award for the nautical hard of thinking). Yesterday it went to someone who popped off his rig tension, only to drop his mast – quite possibly onto a fat person. We've all done it with a frisbee). I did one very slow roll tack, caught my lifejacket on the boom, and very, very slowly capsized. The band was still playing on the foredeck as we slipped gracefully into the briney. I may have heard a muffled whimper from the front. Women and children first – I got my leg over faster than a stabbed rat.

Volvo Noble Marine RS200 Nationals Day 2 at Mount's Bay - photo © Alex & David Irwin / www.sportography.tv

And today's racing was canned, so the 5 teams in this household retired for a spot of local delicacy: Newlyn Crab, mussels, winkles in cider and beef courgette.

Races 5-10. Do watch this space.

Results after Day 3: