admin Date , May 18, 2025 Sailing Previous Blog Boat Trips Comments (0)
One more years experience at sailing and Claudia onboard ( an experienced sailor) to guide us through and ... we ended up a lap behind and by the time we returned all the marks had been put away and all the other boats had their covers on. However Claudia had more fun sailing in that race than she ever had before and she was amazed at my lack of skill in reading a sail - in fact even at looking at it.
The Pursuit race was about to start. We had our time 13 mins. We were going to start before the wayfarers as we were deemed to be slower ( from last years race). As we pulled on the halyard is broke so we needed to tip the boat on its side and pull the new rope through. Fortunately was had a spare so with help from several of the members waiting to race we fixed the rope.
We had 13 minutes to change the halyard but it took 18 so in the end we started with the Wayfarers. With us we brought our new not so secret weapon Claude. An experienced sailor who could tell us what to do to get the edge over the other boats. Claude was not such a secret because of her very loud laugh and there was much of that as she watched me in action and tried to get me to watch the sail. I watched the Jib move this way and that but Claude wanted me to trim the sail and pull and release the ropes and I was slow to the point of humour. After a few minutes I was sacked and Claude told me what to do and when. But even with the best sailor you can't do well without wind and we kept finding those bits of the river without any.
Starting with the faster Wayfarers it was not surprising that they streaked off in front of us, but we were soon overhauled by the Merlin rockets and later by the Topper who was the lead boat. By 1 hr 40 mins we had completed nearly 1 and a half laps the the other boats 3 laps. As we struggled downstream and against the wind we were overtaken by the safety boat taking in the marks and then halfway to the club we met the Committee boat to inform us that we had still another lap to go and that we had been retired from the race. By the time we made it back to the Club, all the other boats had been put away and they were thinking about putting the safety boat away too. At a hundred metres or so from the club the safety boat crew had tied up to the pontoon, marks collected and were watching us intently. They were wondering not when we would finish but if and whether they needed to tow us back to the club.
Claude said that she hadn't imagined that coming last could actually be so much fun. She had enjoyed her afternoon out , not for the racing, although we had great seats watching the other boats go by, but for the excellent company and watching two fantastic sailors in action.
