It was a seriously windy weekend...

We want you to tell us your stories about your weekend sailing (if you went out!)

Six intrepid yachts sailed out from Largs yacht haven over last weekend.  Four from Newcastle University and Two from St Andrews University.  The idea was to have some fun and do some racing/training mainly for the teams that are going to the BUSA and SUSA yaching nationals next month. 

On Saturday we were greated with a brisk S-SW F6 and a race around the island of Great Cumbrae was organised All six sufast 36's started an achievement given that three of the Newcasstle boats were crewed mostly by people with little racing experience.  As the fleet headed towards milport bay on the south of the island the wind increased to around F9 (maybe 10 its hard to tell!) and the mojority of the boats headed back.  Two enthusiatic crews, however, continued and made the turn north up the west coast of the island.  It was a bizzar feeling to surf at 11 knots with just no4 up and the third reef in!  The boats finished the 13 mile lap in about 2 1/2 hours and headed in tired but exhilerated.  All that left for saturday was to head to the bar and share the day's stories over a few well deserved drinks. 

Sunday was a complete contrast, with winds no more than F2 and usually a lot less than that.  The plan was to so a series of short windward/leward courses to help practice boat handling and in the end we managed to get about six races in.  The racing was very close and there were a few cases of boats being seperated by only a couple of seconds on the line.  Baot handeling improved across the fleet and there were a lot of smiles as people headed in at the end of the day.  It looks like this will become a bi-annual even for Newcastle Uni S.C. (the other trip being in October) and people are alredy looking forward to it. 

Thanks must go to Sunsail for letting us loose with their boats, and also to Paul Jeffes and co. for organising the racing for us.  I hope other people had a good time if they made it out.

Below is a picture taken between races on the Sunday (I dont think there are any of saturday unfortunately but if i find some i will post one)

Looks like a typical Largs to me, Wet and Misty and in a totally different weather pattern to the rest of the country.

Did you lose your life savings buying a coffee at Nardini's?

Luckily not, (not sure if it was even open) people had been organised (as all good students are) and brought a healthy supply of tea, coffee and alcohol!!

We did however take over most of the downstairs of regattas untill closing time on saturday night, not quite sure if the locals knew what had hit them. 

[QUOTE=jaysea]Rounding a downwind mark, just
dropped the spinnaker, when bang - almighty jibe, high side becomes
low side, that was a header - no, is that our rudder I can see? Sheared
off stock at the top of the blade. [QUOTE]

We lost our rudder gantry. Upwind on the last lap, having had a really storming race, helm notices that the rudder stock is feeling a bit 'funny' and trying to spit him off the side of the boat. Turns to me and says 'we need to sort that out on the next tack'.  2 seconds later 'shall we ta..' CRUNCH and in we go to windward as the boat luffs over on top of us.

Managed to salvage all the parts and sail to within walking distance of the ramp.

The question is, will we be doing the christmas shopping or fixing the gantry on Saturday?