Le Hayling

Its not easy to decide which is the most beautiful creation in the world. The E type jag is gorgeous and 50 years old this week apparently, the Burj Al Arab, which we could see from the race course in Dubai is amazing, and lately Pippa Middleton's ass has been getting headline news. Yet to me, in my tiny sphere, its the foiling Moth. It's a perfect little boat where every component is relevant and if any one things fails the thing doesn't function. I also like the intimacy that you get from spending a weekend racing. Life is simple and your world is small, just you and the boat. You cant blame any one else and at the start gun we are all the same. What you've done before doesn't matter, what you've said, what you've won.... But after the final race yesterday my Mach 2 wasn't exactly pinking and cooling down like a racing car but it seemed like it and it winked at me and I winked at it.

After 6 races duking it out with Mike Lennon and Jason Belben at the Hayling Island Open meeting we'd come away counting five first places and discarded a second. It was a bloody hard regatta where waves and big wind shifts made it hard to settle, but it was a proper course, a sailors course and not a go kart track, where fast boats got to stretch their legs in the same way that big V eights get to blow away little cars at Le Mans.

My engine was a KA MSL10C and I was using a stiff mast. Possibly too stiff actually and I contemplated changing it to a medium on saturday night. I reckoned I would have gone quicker with the medium, but on Sunday the forecast was for the breeze to drop, so I left the stiff one on. It wasn't light out to sea as it turned out, but we still went ok.

First race on Sunday and my starting went from poor to woeful. I might as well be a registered charity called "Startline", I got pushed the wrong side of the committee boat due largely to being out of position and all but hit the bloody thing, but as I tacked and gybed to finally start I was so angry I knew I was going to win that race. The next one Mike Lennon beat us all fair and square, out of the gate well he nailed the shifts and deserved the win. The final race the wind did drop and it was a lottery, I won largely though a gust I didnt know was coming.

And then we were in, watching the Abarth stunt plane perform in front of the club. I'm aching a bit today but satisfied .

Racing is important when you try to do it well, the UK fleet is really healthy and it was wonderful to see young guns like Cam Stewart out there in his Mach 2, getting knocked down but getting back up again, and out there til the end.