A cold, bleak and blustery day greeted the few hardy sailors that were prepared to venture out for the start of the Max Joule Memorial Trophy series that commenced this weekend. Several people couldn’t believe their eyes when William again turned out in his shorty – but was there method in his madness, as after racing so many women came up and said your legs must be frozen (well they did look a funny shade of blue!) that they had to have a rub of his legs! That seemed fine until Toggle had a rub as well!
As for the racing, Steve Hunt and Ruth Critchley were the first to come a cropper after realising that it’s best to uncleat the sheet when tacking in such windy conditions. It was not long before Ginge and Jose were standing on their centreboard trying to get the mast out of the mud. Meanwhile, Mark and Kirsty had an excellent first beat, but Kirsty was too petrified to risk flying the genniker, which enabled William and Lesley to break through into the lead for what should have been a very short race as OD Roy Blackburn had not indicated there was more than one lap when the course was displayed. However, as if by magic at the end of that first lap, the course was suddenly x4 laps. Roy tried to assure everyone that it had been amended before the start, but some of us are not so sure! So on with the racing it was. This gave Steve Hunt to pull back through the fleet, Rich and Phillip a chance to capsize on the beat, and then follow in father’s footsteps and get their mast stuck in the mud, John Telford and Andy Smith retired because they had a loose screw (sounds fun?!), and Nigel and Laura were the third boat to get their sails covered in that blue clay.
The second race was somewhat tamer in that the wind had eased, but there was some close racing with Mark and Toggle powering up the beats only to lose out to Steve and Ruth off wind. William and Lesley tagged along, but didn’t quite get the wind at the right time. Ah well.