Eastern Area Championships..(being covered by cats!)

So, once again the sun was there, the competitiors were there and the breeze was only just awake!

This was to be another "interesting" event, with "interesting" breeze, interesting "decisions" etc etc... still a load of the ussual suspects were around including Jeremy from way-way down south, Ann Jackson, Birdy, and the guys from Ireland! Thanks has to go to those guys who make one hell of a treck to suppor the fleet...So the racing was actually very good, and when all said and done, the best geezer over the weekend won....but it wasnt us...

So, 23 (ish) boats turned up at Grafham Water for a nice sunny light wind (1-2-3) yacht...

So the individual race results are but a blur to me now i'm afraid, but heres a quick run down of the weekend events...

Race 1
So, light breeze, big shifts for a nice water like Grafham and 20-odd boats, not a great start by us, but not too bad, managed to tack-out of the crap and get on with chasing the breeze, we had a resonable race, in the top 10, if I rememebe correctly we were nudging the top 5 for most of the race, but with the big shifts, we stupidly got caught a little too far out to one side and got errmmm, shafted... down to 9th...

Race 2
Wayhey...
So, we were far more "aggressive" on the line, approached the committee boat-end, Johnny had parked up in a nice position, close to the line, space below... we took it, but stayed 1/2 boat length below the line, gun approaching, accelerated, Johnny couldnt (2 close 2 the line) and we popped out with good speed, looking kool Yeh-baby!
So we won that race nearly an hour later :-)

Race 3
Another damn good start...must remember this agrression/confidence on the line thing for Delph... pretty good race, probably should have been inside top 5, but ended up 5th, still not dissapointing...

Not a bad day at the office then...

Evening, beer, I headed off home, left James to look after the soulsailing social.. no gossip from what I heard, food & beers at club then pool and Guiness at the Wheatsheaf..

Sunday
Well, ok so heres the first winge... its an area championships, part of the national series... day one open meeting course everything was great.. day 2 and we're the 6th start on the club course, so round the cans and lots of other bloody boats in the way...its meant to be serious racing this.. why cant a club like Grafham have the decency top run "proper" races for us, its not like they were short of water!

Race 4
So heres sumat a bit more interesting! We had a good start, didnt make the most of the 1st beat and ended up around 5th on the offwind legs... went round the windward mark, then the first downwind left and then.. at the next mark the leaders sailed off towards the leeward mark rather than than the penultimate one.. we had checked the course a few times so, thinking they were wrong carried on on a run to the next mark, gybed and did the tight reach to the leeward mark before going back up the beat.. this lost us a couple of places and Jeremey and a couple of other boats who did the same swearing that we were doing the right course and everyone else had missed a mark... well we finished the race about 7th, which wasn't bad for doing an extra couple of legs than everyone else! On shore we found that the race committee had changed the course - to our mind,m goign on the only "local sailing instructions we had" whcih was a verbal breifing that morning, the start sequence was 6 mins (warning, 3 mins (preparatory) Start 1, start 2 ... start 6 (us) hence the course couldn't be changed after the initial preparatory signal... duly us and Jeremy filled in protest forms citing rule 72.1.a (I think) asking for redress as we felt we had been materially prejudiced by their actions... so enough of that, forms lodged lets get back on with the last race...

Race 5
So, the wind continued to be up and down and shifty, race officer popped the black-flag up, again we were positive on the line and we had a good start in between the Irish dudes and Mr.Woodward... single recall, we were conmfortable so off we went. By half way up the shifty beat we were looking pretty good, by 3/4 we were in the elad and we managed to hold that round the windward mark, the next leg was a nightmare, wind dropped, filled in, fleet split high & low, and we just managed to keep in sufficient breeze to stay a couple of boat lenghts clear of the ensuing pack. By the time we got to the end of the lap, they had shortened the race (and I mean REALLY shortened it) we rounded the mark with a "club racer" just in front, one boat tacked of straight away and we stayed on and tacked out of the shadow of the "club boat", heading for the mafinsih line playing drag racing with the othe Ent, the wind headed but we could still both lay the mark, meaning that the other guy was pulling out on us slightly, meanwhile the "Cummings" had stormed up to within striking distance, peeled off to starboard and while we were being headed and hence (very stupidly) both almost sailing down the line, he was attacking with good boat speed directly at the line... I relaised this popped a tack in and I think just about beat Brian and Linda Cummings... but it was close damned close...

So happy, and thinking that we were in the running for the overall lead or maybe 2nd (depending on the protest) we headed in...

Unhappily we were promptly told that we had been binned... we were over, black-flagged, chucked...as well as the Irish boyz and our home-boy Johnny... damn...now we were counting a 9th, not so good for the overall position...

So, in boat packed away and we were then subjected to a number of "informal chats" with Grafham officials about our request for redress... it wasnt going to affect the top 3, so we stood our ground, said lets get on with the prizegiving then get the formal protest hearing done... So...

1st Brian & Linda Cummings
2nd Phil & Catrina Bevan
3rd Jeremy Stephens & Katie Haighton

Then we had the protest...we represented ourselves and Jeremys "wishes" gave our case about being materially prejudiced by the race committees actions, they asked some questions, the Race Officer got a little bit defensive...they mulled over the facts...and we WON they basically awarded ourselves and Jeremy redress for their actions/confusion... jobs a good 'un, point made...

So, not 100% sure if that made a difference to the final results, but we think it may have pulled us upto 4th...hope so, but as noone has posted the official results on the web we don't know.... if you guys out there no what the full results are then email me or post a comment...

Finally, thanks James for some excellent sailing... best of the year so far me thinks... keep it real and keep soulsailing groovers...