Sailfest......

Originally posted by blaze720 It is always a bit easy to find fault ...after an event.  The weather simply did not play fair for enough of the time on this occasion.  If anyone can suggest perfect weather dates with certainty more than a few days in advance then they should not be wasting their time here, they should be selling the service and making their fortune.   The planned sailing area is the same as used by Warsash for championships and I could not see any real  fault in that either ... In fact for trying out boats the 'apres' sailing  (ie post cancelled) sail on Sunday was very good.  Close in and just plain playing around.  For example we loaned one of the 'match racing' Icons to a couple of youngish 18' skiff crew who had broken their ride on Saturday and we had fun chasing around both windward/leeward and across the wind for well over an hour with them ...   nothing like trying something new is there guys ! Brenda / Simon L of Sailracer have some photos somewhere ... Mike L.

The last thing I want to do is offend anyone by my comments but I thought that when I suggested a race at Calshot after cancellation it was so that the Bytes could complete their Championship. Three races was not really enough. They did expect a start of their own at least. Great fun yes but rather a sad end to a Nationals. I thought Saifest was a good idea last year and I did this but somehow it never seemed to come off. There were however many things that I personally enjoyed as a spectator and I thank the organisers for that.

11 boats for the Byte Nationals? Blimey, the Minisails had 12, for goodness sake...

So much for the boat being chosen as a pathway class. People have voted with their feet.

Tick, it was lovely to meet you finally in person. I loved your passion and commentary of the byte racing.  In fact I had a good day considering.  Really great to catch up with bootscooter and the boy, great guys always game for a laugh.  Really great seeing The boy growing into being a great yachter!  Bootscooter so passion and commitments to his kids sailing is really inspiring, I just wish I was as selfless as he with my kids development in the sport.

Originally posted by Rupert 11 boats for the Byte Nationals? Blimey, the Minisails had 12, for goodness sake... So much for the boat being chosen as a pathway class. People have voted with their feet.

That weather doesn't look too inspiring, if you had folks saying they enjoyed themselves in that, then I reckon you pulled it off Simon