Beatle Jam

As a change and a break from the usual sailing related sound and fury, here's a link to a snippet from last night's rehearsal with the band.

https://www.box.com/s/0374db5dda15cfe5b298

Back to the usual subject however, had a great day's sailing in Penny on Sunday. Was supposed to have a rescue duty over in Lydney, but sailing was blown out by the weather so got stood down. Never blows hard enough to stop racing on the lake at Frampton however, and the Lydney OOD was good enough to stand me down in time to get hold of H, get to the lake, rig and make the 2pm start there.

The wind was a shiftly, gusting northerly F5 at the start of the first race. Uncharacteristically great start, first around the windward mark, and stayed in contention for most of the race, until a dodgy shift caught us mid-tack and bailed us in. We sailed well though, throughout the race, so I'm content with the fourth place we ended with.

Back on form, a mediocre start to the second race saw me throw it all away by tacking onto port early to try and salvage it, and then not accounting for the heel and mast height of a new-fangled Rooster-rigged Laser on starboard when trying to duck him. Clipped the top of his mast with ours, and the 720 we were obliged to take put us firmly at the back of the fleet. Though we did catch the Rooster before the end.

Again, it doesn't matter. The buffetting and brutalities of the last couple of weeks sailing feel like they've moved our own game up a notch and we're spending much more time working as a team and sailing the race rather than letting the boat sail us. Just got to consolidate that into some decent results.

Busy weekend coming up. Instructing on Saturday, wedding gig that night, then Frampton's Enterprise Open on Sunday. Finally, up early Bank Holiday Monday to catch the tide from Lydney to sail the Newnham Tea Clipper race with Dad in the Lugger. High Tide is a 9.6m at 0931hrs, at which point we should have reached Newnham to breakfast on bacon butties and tea before the mad dash back with the ebb to try and land back at Lydney before the outrushing tide leaves the slip untenable.

Can't wait!