Landlocked is simply a state of mind

All this ruminating over the end of the 2013 season, I thought I'd share a photo of my Enterprise, "Buffy" in action. We're the boat on the right hand side; my son on helm, I'm crew. The photo was taken on my camera at the Ent Open Meeting at our sailing club back in October. The boat to starboard of us is being helmed by the Club's Enterprise Fleet Captain Phil, with the very able young Lewis as crew.

Phil is an exceptionally dedicated and gifted sailor, one of those folks who intuitively knows how to get the best out of any boat he sails, and has always been unfailingly generous with his encouragement and support
of us lesser mortals in all matters sailing. He's one of the few fellow lake sailors at Frampton who, like me, shares a passion for our big, muddy River next door, where he races a Cherub downriver from Lydney at
Thornbury Sailing Club. He also has a certain enthusiasm for cruising Wayfarers.

We'd just come to the end of a screaming reach where we'd caught up and gained the overlap on him in the fourth and final race of the event. Ben, at this point, looks understandably focused, but is feeling stupidly pleased with himself. We went on to finish 2nd, our best result of the four, and Phil's only loss of the day.

The race report can be read online here.

If I'm sounding all glum and downtrodden with the end of the sailing season, don't feel too sorry for me. It's not as bad as last year, when all racing ceased until March. This year, the Club starts a trial "Icicle" series next Sunday; four races in total, one race every other weekend, to take us through to the start of the Spring series at the end of February.