Monday, July 14, 2008

An Embarrassing Result

Did a bit of sailing this weekend, and we got a bit of an embarrassing result in the local regatta.

I've signed up to help crew the classic boat above at the centennial regatta next month and this weekend we entered a couple of races at the granite toe of England, just by the St Michaels Mount in the background of this photo.

It was certainly one of those learning experience - i.e. lots of things went wrong. I was up on the foredeck which isn't my usual position, so there were some less than polished hoists and drops, though gybes were mostly ok.

We even managed to mess up a simple tack when the bowline on starboard jib sheet fell apart (not one of mine hasten to add).

But, oh gosh how embarrassing, will have to go to small font, we came 1st.

We so really didn't deserve it. Tillerman struggles for weeks to get his tactics just right and we stumbled round the course and ended up with a trophy and two bottles of wine at the regatta awards.

But it was a really useful day's sail. In our post mortum most of the problems were put down to the spinnaker and jib halyards getting twisted early on, so we know to double check for that.

And I've learnt that I'll spend a lot of time on my knees, which are now a bit of a bloody mess, so will have to get long trousers or some of those knee pads that cleaners use to scrub the floor.

That's not something I've read in the sailing books!

5 comments:

Tillerman said...

Congratulations!

Ain't this a weird sport. One day you make all kinds of mistakes and come first. Next week you sail as hard and as well as you can and just get beat by a bunch of faster sailors.

JP said...

Very weird.

I think all the credit should go to the lovely boat and conditions that really suited it.

Suicide Green said...

Well, actually I think this whole blog thing is v unfair. At least as unfair as people winning things despite their halyards getting in a twist. You have at least 800 hits on your blog and i have about 4 and I know for a fact that I know at least 12 people.
Don't you think my parents are unusual?
Kate has spent all her time up north trying to pronounce 'bath' in the vernacular and standing in Waitrose.
Nice picture of the boat. Perhaps I ought to add pictures. I might get a bit more interest.
1st !! Wow !!
I went out withPpaul Gambacini and Chris Evans last night.
Do you think name dropping might help?
You can use the 'moderate comments' facility.
xx

JP said...

Name drop away - I love hearing about your glamorous life.

I've got a photo of your dad with the trophy which I'll email to you.

Tell T. I enjoyed the croquet match :)

Katinka said...

Wow, that's fantastic!! :) I hope you're celebrating thoroughly, and that your poor knees are recovering. (Am sorely tempted to make a crack about how hard it must be to get good help with swabbing the deck these days, but know better than to taunt a man with a harpoon in hand *mis grn*)