Who IS out THIS weekend

Originally posted by MRJP BUZZ 585

   Saturday:

Woke up. Hungover. Early. Raining. Ugh. Load up with sails etc, off to the club. Rain stopped. Mast's already down, wings padded and secured too, so it's on with the covers, boat tied down, mast one, and go.

Leave club, it starts to pee it down again. Lovely. Round the North Circular, round past City Airport. Into the watersports centre at the west end of Royal Victoria Dock. Rain's off, so taking the covers off isn't a problem. Rig up. Briefed by Dave Hall

"Don't hit the Sunseekers"

Down to the show. Attend to the B14 on the outside concourse for a bit. Wind around 11am is producing whitecaps. There is concern amongest the fleet.

The Mustos appear. Wind has dropped to something a bit more manageable, but there's still a lot of swimming, to the amusement of specatators. Watch a couple of races, then go for a wander. Decide that everyone who'd paid for a ticket had been robbed. THey all look cheery enough. Certainly, there's little for those into "performance" dinghy sailing to look at. Little dinghy clothing and chandlery too. Anyone thinking of going next year to watch the racing, just go and stand on the bridge or by the docks outside the show.

Anyway, back to the centre, kit up, launch. Just before launching, one of our competitors gives us advice:

"Start giggling when you get on the boat, and if you stop before you come back, you'll have a miserable time". Start giggling. Don't stop.

 Wind has died a long way. Unsuprisingly, it's also very shifty and swirly. Quite unpleasent.

So, anyway, we get down to the start area. Our atempt at disguising ourselves to hide from ridicule by using a different sail number fails, as it's noticed and we're announced anyway... Of eight poor starts from eight boats, we make an exceptionally poor one. Eventually limp in in seventh, with the eight boat having retired due to rudder issues.

Race two, starts aren't getting much better. End up at the back of the fleet again, and on second lap fighting for seventh versus two young lads that post on here. We get finished down wind to hurry things along. In seventh though, which is nice.

Race 3. Single lap. Force Barry into being aggresive on the start. It's a cluster             again, but we come out of it suprisingly well, and and are up to fourth at the windward. Luck sees us hit the dizzying heights of third as we approach the bridge. And a hole. Boats pass close to left and right as we drift to the leeward mark. Round it in sixth, with "Hyde Sails" just behind us, and they round better. Drifting to the line, they get a puff- but too late. Just. We break our run of sevenths, but end seventh overall. Giggling. Especially after that daft finish.

Blash blah packup prizegiving etc.

Today: back at King George. Wind's up.       .

First race, everything seems to be going pretty well all the way round. Big grins.

Second race, spectacular wipe out sees us lose too much time. Attempt to go for a blast, only to wipe out again. Give up. Go in. Discover that in the midst of all this, the boom had managed to get a terminal bend by the original kicker attachment. Oops.