July 2016

The best laid plans…!

by Gillian Ashworth      [This account of the Regatta is mainly from my perspective]

Rachel kicked off proceedings, firstly commiserating with David Charlesworth who had to withdraw a couple of days earlier due to a bad fall: cracked skull, damaged leg and a broken wrist, and wishing him a speedy recovery. Then she gave her usual thorough briefing of the tasks to be undertaken using Rod Goodman’s motorboat, Seaesta, and Dr Ron Shanson’s Feels Great, thanking both of them for participating. Pablo reiterated the racing procedure.

• Task 1: two 720 manoeuvres, avoiding two imaginary parallel lines off the stern of Seaesta, one to be done either side of the boat.
• Task 2: gybes and tacks in a strict order returning to a buoy behind Feels Great.
• Task 3: heave to twice, on either side of Seaesta then bringing down the CBYA pennant from the masthead, and after the second heave to, raising it again. One yacht had some technical problems and had to lower the jib!
• Task 4: man over board, strictly per the RYA procedure [i.e. broad reach for 3+ boat lengths, beam reach, tack, sail upwind back to the man overboard and stop the boat head-to-wind alongside to pick up the ‘body’ from windward side].

“The forecast is for some rain, but they’ll be warm showers”, Hugh said…. Foolishly I believed him and neither of us took waterproofs, nor did most people participating. read more →