The motto is simple.
Buy a boat with a spinnaker, always put the kite up. Rule 1, this rule supersedes every other rule, i know rule 1 was never quit and you and should never quit but…. Always better to have fun with the kite than white sail to victory; white sailing is like Nick Clegg (did you know he was Kinghted!!??)…. You think it’s going to get you ahead but it turns out to be joyless and boring.
Race 3 of the Early Summer series.
After 2 no shows the wind finally turned up at FFSC for race 3, Rog the Spoldge was RO and set a course of:
Oystercatcher (P), Kingsfleet (P), Deben (P), Oystercatcher (P), Kingsfleet (P), Line.
Wind 17knots with some nice big fruity gusts over 20knots, tide…yes the tide was ebbing tonight (hurrah!)
As the fleet rushed for the start, Scammell / Read in the merlin found themselves running out of room and had to tack to clear the groyne, giving Swain and Daniels a head start, overhauling them on the beat, first to round Oystercatcher it was a beam reach to Kingsfleet.
The merlin proved to be a handful on this leg but the team stretched out on Daniels and Swain, Lewis / Hawkins finally got themselves organised and started to haul in the lasers. At the gybe mark (Kingsfleeet) Scammell / read rounded and decided that the opportunity to use Rule 1b was there, so hoist they did. The kite filled, the gust hit and the team roared off down to Deben. Followed by Daniels in the laser and Lewis / Hawkins in the RS400 rounding before Swain in the radial.
Watch out cliff!
Sailing as high as they could the merlin of Scammell / Read started to pull away fast. For those readers that remember the Young Ones Tv show remember the ‘ summer holiday episode? y’know the one, the double decker and Rik shouts the immortal words “watch out Cliff!” as they plunge through a poster of Cliff Richard and then over a cliff? Well the same but different… Matt says “shallow here!” “i know, i’m trying to work her up” roughly two seconds before the boat hits the putty. A sharp slowing down then a smallish ‘bang!’ phew the sexy impact release cleat has worked preserving the carbon fibre rudder, Simon turns to push the rudder back down; “The rudders ‘casse’ !” Simon reports from the back of the boat (replace with more robust french as necessary). Kite down race over.
We can’t report much more of race 3 apart from none else put their kites up, it was all good fun and all the sailors came in smiling even us!
So always put your kite up, you never know when the next opportunity will be ?