Weekend Breaks in England

My boat arrived on Tuesday and went together really well. I spent a couple of evenings working on it which was fun actually.

Then on Thursday McConaghy auctioned the ebay "Silver Edition" Mach 2 which quite frankly is a bloody sterling gesture with all proceeds going to the childrens charity "Variety". Thank you to everyone I asked to publicise it, including IMCA World and especially to Simon Propper who gatecrashed the UK site to do the same in lieu of any response from a committee who's most important line of communication seems to have gone into receivership.

Anyway today I went down to sail my boat for the second time only to find a Moth training camp at HISC with 12 good boats and Pete Barton calling the tune.

Thanks to all for some good 3,2,1 go racing in light winds. Ricky Tagg looked fast, Jason Belben, back in the class and great to see again was up early in the light stuff, so to was Alex Adams, but the man of the weekend in my opinion was Ian Gotts, who after breaking his foil by twatting the bottom rebuilt it overnight and was out and foiling today, thus exhibiting a bit of self sufficiency and grit that we would all do well to take note of.



For me it was a nice weekend. By the time I'd got this many hours in last time I'd been rescued twice, but it was a still a bit of a shock to hike again in this my first Moth race since the Worlds. Today I did OK remembering my laylines and having some good speed with the KA MSL13 but I was confused by my swiss made (and now rusty..) ride height adjuster which I was fascinated with and couldnt help using in the same way I used to use a Yo-Yo.. It was clear I needed some practice and I'll be out in the week.

And yes it was cold! Yesterday I was sailing along looking at the rig and pleased with the way things had gone I thought lazily "that field looks closer than I remember, I should probably tack.." Next thing I know I was sitting on my arse in 18 inches of water, the bow of the boat covered in mud, the May stick bent and a long ten minute walk back to the deep water, I swear I nearly died of cold...

Photos: Peter Barton