Adrian our self confessed wind god of a Race Officer had kindly arranged for Champagne conditions on day 2. Not a cloud in the sky and with a wind of F3-4 it promised to be a good day.
Race 1
A trapezoid course was set and the fleet were keen at the first start. After a general recall and black flag the fleet were off. The race was won by Andy Barker and Peter Grieg in 1318 2nd was Russ Wheeler and Chris Saunders in 1341, 3rd new to the fleet Dave Wade and Bernard Gooman in the borrowed 1350. The Spray Tanned Sailing God was enjoying moderate success in the middle of the fleet until his helm Paul Heather in 1292 decided to hit the last mark and let 3 boats through while doing his turn.
Race 2
At the final leeward mark Paul Heather having not learnt from Race 1 tried the same trick but this time was punished by capsizing (turtle) on the mark. By the time the boat was righted. The spinnaker untied and removed from round the centre board 1292 had gone from 16th to last.
Race 3
To cap the day off Paul Heather in 1292 provided the entertainment by falling out of the back of the boat when coming ashore. To add to his embarrassment he had tied his right foot in the boat with the main sheet. Fortunately there were plenty of people on hand to lift him out of the water. (pictures ?! - Ed)
View from the rear (all 3 races since I have no idea what happened)
Thank you WSC for the most amazing sail. Those lumps in the water took a little getting used to after Poole Harbour but following yesterday's lesson by turning turtle, we approached the races as experts. At the first start we could not see either end so were not surprised to hear 3 beeps and a return. After this, the boys and girls behaved. We had good starts and bad starts, good beats and bad beats and still ended up at the ,mark with exactly the same boats around us and a lot of boats ahead. On the second beat we lost 2 places as we watched the spectacle of the cries of "starboard" turning into "glug.glug, glug, closely followed by "you ........!" Sadly someone was dreaming and rather than slice the offender in two, ?Adam decided to cool off with a refreshing swim. Very sporting of him.
Other than that the legs merged into one glorious day as we thrashed up wind, flew on the three sail reaches and narrowly avoided gybing on the runs. Lots of people passed us and we passed a few ourselves. Richard Hattersley kept getting in the way. We have no idea what happened at the front but at the back, we had the best days sailing of our lives.
View from the middle (ish)
As lightweight pond sailors, Viola and Francis Scott of 1314 are probably alone in hoping for a little less wind! However it couldn't be denied that the conditions offered superb sailing today on a well laid course entirely free of oversized shipping. Getting a good start in an Osprey nationals is a tricky business and aggression seems to be needed in spades. Is it ok to be over as long as everyone else is? However the black flag was quickly deployed and we eventually managed to end up the right side. We managed to get a bit of the hang of the waves and by the third race of the day we had improved enough to finish in exactly the same position as before. Having experimented with sailing huge angles downwind or heading straight for the mark we also concluded that it doesn't make a difference. For the rest of the week will hope for calm, frustrating conditions where we can try to out-drift the competition and put a bit more pressure on the so-far unshakable shoulders of our race officer.
