February on Ice

February. Not a fan of the month myself.

Sat on the cusp of another bout of man-flu and twitchy because the lake was frozen over this last weekend so I didn't get to sail the Ent. Mind you, if I'm twitchy, then I think my crew is positively rebelious with frustration.

I say crew, but actually our roles have been reversed since the last race on New Year's Day. She's been put forward by our Club for a place on the RYA Dinghy Instructor course they'll be running at the end of this coming summer, so I've been tasked with getting her boat handling up to scratch.

The outcome of this is that I'm playing crew and she's practicing on the helm, and she'll helm two out of the three Spring series coming up at Frampton. She'll do fine, but meanwhile we need to take every oportunity we can for practice, which isn't such a hardship as she's absolutely addicted to being out on the water and the cold, bleak midwinter is no deterent to her enthusiasm, so in that respect we're kindred spirits (and therefore equally bad for each other!)

So the freeze of last weekend was nothing short of a personal disaster. With luck, the water will thaw through the week despite the sub-zero evening tempretures, otherwise, I don't think we'll hear the end of it!

That said, even if the ice does draw back, the forecast is currenty suggesting the weekend wind is going to be pants anyway. Perfect excuse to go play with the Lasers perhaps. If our messing around with a Feva the other week was anything to go by, she needs a lot of centre-main practice, but there's every chance that anything stiffer than a light breeze will prove very, very wet!