YachtsandYachting.com Forumites Open Meeting

Reflections of the weekend

The event

1.       Broxbourne Sailing Club did an excellent job and I hope that for future events we can receive the same level of hosting.  A wonderful welcome, great courses in difficult conditions (I have been reliably told that the wind was shifting a little) and perfect catering with bacon butties in the mornings and 2nds and, for some, even 3rds at dinner.  TBH, IMO, we could not have found a better club to host the inaugural FOM 

2.       It is clear to me that I was not sailing in a fleet of armchair sailors.  The competence of all of the sailors was very high and rule observation was excellent.  It was a pleasure to sail in a fleet of such diverse classes with, it seems to me, everyone having a moment of glory near the front at some stage over the weekend.  We had a huge age range with competitors from 7 years old to G.R.F. at 77 years old (cheeky bugger put DOB as 1992 on his entry form, but this fooled no-one).

3.       It was nice to see so many different classes with extremes from the nostalgic Minisail (which escaped G.R.F.s matches by leaving before the Saturday evening festivities) to the amazing Punk and powerful X1.

4.       Best accommodation was the Pikeys and the worst, with the first frost of the season, were the tents.  Russ slept in his car and didn't even have Charlie to cuddle up to.  I have to say that we have some hardy souls on this forum.

5.       I was concerned about the sizes of the lake but, in hindsight, I think it was perfect.  It provided for great spectating (G.R.F. groupies please note for next year) and because the courses were compact all of the boats were in view of the rest with no issues of anyone disappearing over the horizon.

6.       I thought that the format of afternoon racing on Saturday and morning racing on Sunday worked well.  It allowed time for competitors to travel to the venue on Saturday morning and plenty of time to get home at a respectable hour on the Sunday.  Also, for the main event, 3 short races each day seemed to be popular with everyone.  The Saturday boat swap race was popular giving a chance for experiencing the pleasures of another craft.

7.       To summarise we struck lucky with the perfect host club, the standard of competition was high and, I think, we achieved the main objective of having fun both on and off the water.  It’s really how I remember dinghy racing years back before the heavy commercial  influence that we have in this day and age with so many jockeys dominating the events.  Of course instead of the normal written abuse some resorted to verbal abuse.  Thanks to all for coming and making the FOM such an enjoyable regatta with a special thank you to Mark who contributed beanies for all (much appreciated by those sleeping in tents), Pondmonkey for judging the Concours d’Elegance and providing prizes (James also seemed to have an endless supply of fancy dress or, perhaps he always dresses like that, we will never know).  Thanks also to Clive Eplett who contributed 3 copies of his amazing book CLUB SAILOR: from back to front, every club racer should keep a copy under his, or her, pillow.  The books went to Blaze720, 5th (to try and get on to the podium next time), Newake05, last of the fleet to get a result in all races (so that he won’t be last next time) and KeithF (to move him from mid fleet to the front half of the fleet next time).

What I learned from the weekend

1.       The Forumites are all excellent sailors, great fun and good company.

2.       You can have good racing and fun at the same time.  The banter wasn’t left on the shore and much continued around the race course.

3.       There’s a lots of nice boats out there.

4.       Remember to take my watch next time.

5.       To let the boom up whilst tacking.  Failing to do so left me speadeagled on the floor of the boat, out of control, nearly capsizing and almost hitting the mark.  Russ was just behind me and was so busy laughing his socks off that he let me slip away so maybe it could go on my list of tactics.

6.       Never give up!  In the last race I managed to get the first beat so wrong that the boats on my right and the boats coming in from the left were all ahead of me at the first mark.   I think there were 2 or 3 behind me only.  At that stage I resolved to retire when I got near to the clubhouse knowing that I had a lot of packing up to do but by the time I got there I forgot and went round again finishing a lucky 4^th in the race.

7.       Count how many 1664s I have had as the evening progresses.  I lost count after 6 pints.

8.       Go sailing more than twice a year.

9.       Do this again next year.