admin Date , August 10, 2025 Sailing Previous Blog Wednesday Wayfarer Comments (0)
We weren't expecting strong winds. In fact when we set out we not sure that we would have enough wind to race, but w=as we arrived at the club and sat down on the tables by the River a gentle breeze persuaded us that maybe we could sail.
We were just getting our boat ready, greatful that this was not a nine mile race, when Hannah from Malta and her Mum and Granddad arrived. I had arranged form them to be my guests when they came back since their visit at Easter. But David the Membership Secretary had sorted everything out. We sorted out a Topper for her. She told us that she was now racing Toppers in Malta so we wondered how good she would be on the River in very light winds.
The first Race started but the wrong flag was up so we didn't realise that that was our race. Neither did a lot of others, so instead Paul and practised our skills at going up and down the river in light and very variable winds.
The next race promised something different, though I wasn’t expecting it to be a lesson in patience.
We spent a good 15 minutes sailing lazily around the start line, killing time until the five-minute warning. When it finally came, Hannah appeared beside us in her Topper — which, as it turned out, was rapidly becoming more of a bathtub than a racing dinghy.
I tried to grab her boat. Missed. Tried again. Missed again. Finally, I grabbed her hand instead, and we both leaned out of our boats like some low-budget sailing version of the Titanic handshake scene. Once we’d managed to bring the boats close, I reached for our bailer to help her out — only to find the rope was too short to actually reach her boat. I worked at the knot for a minute or two whilst the Topper continued to fill with water. Hannah bailed furiously anyway, the race starting all around us.
We crossed the line well enough, but Hannah was told she’d jumped the start and had to turn back. We pressed on, clinging to the tail end of the fleet while the faster boats sailed off into the distance.
Four laps to do. We rounded the first mark, headed back to the Home mark, then back up again. And then, just metres from the S mark, the wind gave up completely.
The safety boat was moored up nearby, and as we drifted alongside and had a lovely conversation with Don and Francis. Every now and then, we made a feeble attempt at rounding the mark, but without wind — and in barely any current — it was like trying to push custard uphill. Paul even tried heeling the boat to get us moving, but the Toura simply looked at him and said, “Nice try.”
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then fifteen. Finally, the faintest tickle of a breeze arrived, and we crept towards the mark. Don watched with the intensity of a man betting on a snail race. Would we hit it? Would we scrape past? We slid by with millimetres to spare.
Only then did we discover that a picnicking party on the far bank had been watching our slow-motion struggle the whole time. As we finally rounded the mark, they erupted into a cheer loud enough to make us feel like we’d just won the America’s Cup.
We didn’t win, of course. We were promptly lapped by the leaders. But we finished — and in a race like that, sometimes that’s victory enough.
