Who was out this weekend?.....

Baled on going to Weymouth speed week and raced the Blaze instead.

As usual when I do something I'm not supposed to God punishes me..

Over at the start, came back to reround, got into irons, pfafed about,
evetually rounded the windward mark last. Quite a breezy first reach
caught a couple of tail enders including my mate in his Phantom, baled
and chicken gybed at the wing mark, I am such a pussy, back to last place
after a second session in irons, irons at the gybe ffs, get a grip you
woman..

Manned up a bit from thereon in, it was quite breezy by now and a
couple of shifts had me back in contention, managed to handle the
gybing on the run in a more masculine manner, scored another decent
beat as the weather began to take it's toll on the fleet, with breakages
spillages lollipop shaped spinnakers on poles pointing skyward with
bodies hanging over the side, spinnaker poles chucked in the drink and
lost, lasers death rolling, but the final triangle a brisk 4 -5 gave me the
first taste of what the Blaze boys must be going on about of it's reaching
speed, just about managed to hang out far enough to sheet in on a tight
reach but nearly went over the front when the lee wing contacted a wave
and almost stopped me dead.
Then I actually nearly did a text book gybe (well if the text book included
a bit where the sheet gets ripped out of your hand and deposited over the
lee gunwhale) I did manage to get it back and sat on the label down the
next reach watching the nose perpetually bury in every damn wave that
came along, I did consider body dragging out of the back at one point in
and effort to get enough weight back far enough to lift the nose.

Turned out I managed third over the water but I suspect a laser might
have finished close enough to knock me back to fourth on handicap,
thanks to breakages and an enthusiastic race officer binning a few for not
finishing or going through the course correctly, so not so bad after all..

That almost looks like you've purchased an 18 foot skiff.

Originally posted by Ross That almost looks like you've purchased an 18 foot skiff.

*DING DING DING*

We have a Winner!

Went to Whitstable twice, but only got out yesterday after some technical issues on Saturday led to a hour or so of percussive maintenance in front of the clubhouse (hello to any Whitstable folks reading who were amused by this display). Pity, the wind was rather better on Saturday, though we achieved what we set out to achieve on Sunday (which wasn't what we'd set out to achieve on Saturday.

Our Contender guy Tom was out and in a pretty strong breeze he must be
leading our autumn series now in it.

Think he might have forgotten to put his clock back and launched early
before it got really breezey so stayed out there, when I turned up they just
decided to cancel as the wind had just gotten up.

It's my old mums 90th anyway so I had other issues this weekend, it also
prevented me from going to the Blaze inlands at Oxford which I really
wanted to do, I wonder how they fared..