Who was out this weekend?.....

We are trying a couple of tactics this weekend,

1. being pester the environment agency to turn up and cut the weed at some point, like they normally do!

2. With have a very large steel cable going to use it and some chains as draglines of the safety boats.

3.Collect with handrakes and lots of hard work!!

Will see how we get on, should go ok, and we only need to clear a 200 x 5m area that has got really thick, and is affectin our normal start area!

Thanks for the suggestions

Back on topic. Went down to the sailing club this weekend to mark lay for the GP14 nats. Friday I mark laid. Saturday and Sunday I crewed for an Irish guy who came over on the off chance there would be someone hanging around who wanted to sail. We sailed 4 races together, 9,11,12,DSQ. Rather pleased considering it was a 52boat fleet with some real top guys there. Just waited for the Y&Y report to see some pics now.

 

Well I currently look like the elephant man after a vicious and protracted midge attack. I now know not to stay at the sailing club after 6pm no matter what the circumstances!

Had a great afternoon yesterday. My little girl allowed me to sail 2 races and despite completely stuffing up the start of the last race and rounding dead last around 45 seconds behind the fleet.

Somehow I managed to overhaul them and found myself in a stunning second place by the end of the second beat, pulling through to win by over at minute at the finish. Boy am I feeling it today though! Was a hard days sailing in a nice breeze, comfortably hiked (well as comfy as you can get in a Laser) and some good planing reaches.

Brilliant sail on the Medway on Sunday.

A rather gusty but medium SW meant we could get the kites
up off the line in the morning. We got both luffed and
blanketed and so worked our way to the back of the fleet.
We fought back though and just pipped our arch rivals at
the finish line but were about 2/3s down the fleet overall.

After lunch we got a good start on a fetch. Further down
the course we were 2 sail reaching when our rivals sailed
over us. I'm not sure how that happened because we are
generally better on that sort of leg. The next leg was
broad and they sailed even further away (that's their
forte) and we got easily taken by the 59er. However the
wind increased to quite strong and the 59er understood
the next mark and had to do a hasty drop and head up, so
too the 5000 and us, but we were not so bad and passed
them to see our rivals now about 200m in front.

Our windward speed in a blow is good and a couple of
recent tweaks have improved the pointing too and so we
were able to plane and outpoint our rivals. They were so
intimidated that they went the wrong way up the river
whilst we dodged the tide to come out about 200m ahead of
them after about 20 minutes. They never caught us and we
finished 2nd to the Canoe.

I relish next week at the Medway Regatta and our new
found windward performance.