Did a bit of sailing this weekend, and we got a bit of an embarrassing result in the local regatta.I've signed up to help crew the classic boat above at the centennial regatta next month and this weekend we entered a couple of races at the granite toe of England, just by the St Michaels Mount in the background of this photo.
It was certainly one of those learning experience - i.e. lots of things went wrong. I was up on the foredeck which isn't my usual position, so there were some less than polished hoists and drops, though gybes were mostly ok.
We even managed to mess up a simple tack when the bowline on starboard jib sheet fell apart (not one of mine hasten to add).
But, oh gosh how embarrassing, will have to go to small font, we came 1st.
We so really didn't deserve it. Tillerman struggles for weeks to get his tactics just right and we stumbled round the course and ended up with a trophy and two bottles of wine at the regatta awards.
But it was a really useful day's sail. In our post mortum most of the problems were put down to the spinnaker and jib halyards getting twisted early on, so we know to double check for that.
And I've learnt that I'll spend a lot of time on my knees, which are now a bit of a bloody mess, so will have to get long trousers or some of those knee pads that cleaners use to scrub the floor.
That's not something I've read in the sailing books!
