The Solution.

I think I explained about board in my post, cost! The Lightning belongs to a lady friend who is moving on to Byte. I imagine about £600. Nice boat but sail a bit floppy. I do have photos.

It was bitter today, winter back with a vengeance and with it the bloody gloves, as gloves go the pair I use are about as good as it gets, some Gul ones with the stripey grip I bought a couple of seasons back and ordinarily they're OK, but with new ropes & everything it just seemed that little bit more slippery so that'll do for one of the excuses. I hear they've sold Gul to JJB sports so that'll be the end of another fine brand or I'm a dutchman with a full head of hair, that can be their karma.

But enough, this week I'd secured the centreboard with a cleat from a kite bar which has an inbuilt fairlead this worked OK and everything else functioned just as it should, the only bit that wasn't doing what it should was clutching the wiggle thing, tacking badly, not sheeting in far enough or too far and generally displaying his normal lack of boat handling competence, I really must learn a tacking technique that doesn't involve teeth or arse on tiller.

To early at the start meant a down the line bear off into the bloody bank a half assed tack into a wind shadow a 1st beat watching the other Solution being sailed as if he'd been sailing it all his life, pouring away from me up wind and rounding first whilst I rounded 5 th again, behind it, two lasers and a bloody streaker. I got the streaker on the downwind leg, then the bugger got me back on a tight windward fetch leg, took me higher and to windward! This wasn't going according to plan at all and the boat quickly filled with the feathers I'm spitting.

Next came a long broad reach into a run and I had them both for a bit sailing high, catching the gust then riding it down right on top of them, then the bloody laser somehow escaped in a sort of venturi effect i guess it must have been, punching between us (the streaker and I) I'm standing up and just spotted the shift in time, flung myself into the bottom of the boat as it gybed, the laser wasn't so quick and decided to go into a tail spin and in the confusion, I was by, rounded the mark back into third, got a lovely tight reach fully planing and went round the leeward mark right on the tail of the 2nd laser with my tail up.

I then dialled it, finally found the groove, I wish I could have marked the rope, but got the rig sheeted exactly right, the boat was flat and with a lovely lifting puff we creamed upwind with me fully hiked, confident that at the very next knock their arses were grass and I'm the lawn mower man.

Then I remembered why they were over there wrong siding the lake missing this dream shift as I screamed the word that rhymes with Luck , tacked and bore away back down to the bloody mark I'd missed only to be back muddling with Streaker man and my usual Laser nemesis who of course had gone the right course.

Then once again rattled, everything fell apart every tack was greeted with a header, the gloves kept slipping, my feet missed the toe strap and I fumbled and fell about up the course just holding them off cursing my mentalness.

And so it was for pretty much the rest of the race I'd pull away a bit offwind do something stupid upwind which is still my weak point in it, never did quite find that groove again, in the post race discussion, Laser man said i was pointing pretty high, I didn't think it felt like it, never got close to the other solution he managed to get into irons doing something silly so the other Laser got it again, I held off my Laser but only just pipped him by three or four seconds, but got a respectable third over the water which translated to 6th corrected an all time best for a cold breezy one, not sure quite how windy it was but it was from the North East so all over the place not nice to sail in at all.

 The Laser got me on corrected, cos they're still sailing us off 1080, something to do with not being able to change the handicap mid series on the computer and the Streaker and a Solo added to the 6th. All things considered another fun, incident filled, close quarter contest, boat full of feathers one minute, elation the next, every tactical trick I can pull just to stay in touch and compensate for my useless begloved, death bagged, trust upped, techniqueless boat skills, any other boat and I'd have swum. I didn't and it never crossed my mind, nor did i get into irons, so it nursed me through all my nonesense, it is indeed a fine craft and I'm loving every minute of it, heaven help them when it warms up a tad and the wind eases...

No idea, have never been near it or the results until recently, if that's the way they do it, not for me to rock the boat, I'm just a newcomer down there and I honestly don't mind, in fact I prefer to be able to complain and moan about being robbed, whilst calling them all bandits, much more fun.

I'm sure someone there could change it, they were talking with some delight at the Streaker going down and the Miracle gaining another 10 points, that's gone down really well.

Seriously though the craic is on the water, who cares really what goes on, other than the joy that can be had at pointing out the anomalies from time to time.

This boat does tighten things up a bit though and I'll either have to sharpen up with it or start taking some stick myself once the newness has worn off, can't go blaming handicaps for losing for ever..