Like a 2007 Virgin

Well not always, but it is today!

So really didn't have a good boat hunting weekend, not managed to progress any of my leads, but still trying... Can't seem to get the right combination... they're either good boat, high price, with crap sails or crap boat with good sails...

Anyway, despite my strop the other week, I decided that doing Emberton Park Enterprise Open Meeting was a good idea, so trucked down the M1 this morning, with The Enemy playing loud on the stereo...

Got there, lack of wind but not raining yet, sorted boat out with James (he'd done 98% of it 'cus he got there before me) and went for coffee and Bacon & Egg Sarnie... nice...

So about 8 or so Enterprises rocked up to drift around the puddle, all the rockl stars were up at Tynemouth but hey we won't let that get us down...tooo much!

So the OOD managed to set a bleedin' complex course, round all but two of the marks... thankfully James is switched on enuff to know which way to go 'cus by the second mark I havent got a clue!

So I remembered my watch this time... start line was between the transit on the island and a boy near to the club... we made the "rash" decision, ok I gambled cus why should I care, to start opposite end of the fairly short line, under the shore, close as we could withought hitting the bottom and do a port-tack flyer with the thought that along the shore we would have water as we were "up against the bank" with nowhere to go! Suprisingly we timed it well and managed to pull-off a cracking start and nailed the fleet... yee-ha!

Now obviously I have sailed ay Emberton before and know that it definately ain't over till the woman who shouldn't sit on your lap starts singing... but it definately helps to be infront!

We had some tussles with the Martins (both helms with no crews between them so decided to boat share!) including one dodgy call for water which I got away with but may have been a little "close", still I didn't think it through and that put me on the outside track for the next mark so they had water on me..sigh... sailing is a game of chess I gotta remember to think multiple moveds ahead! Anyway went around the gybe m,ark heading down towards the island... we stayed on, they gybed off and we caught a small puff of breeze and left them struggling to pull away from the mark... from that point on although it was always tricky, we m,anaged to stay ahead, stay out of trouble and mostly stay in breeze, although there was a couple of brown-trousers occurences where the wind failed us but the rest of the boats on the lake had some kinda magic momentum....

So basically we won, first race we've done that in for bleedin' ages, hurrahh!

So in we went, coffee, chicken pie, chips and beans.. sailing clubs embrace healthy eating!

More course changes, still bugger-all wind and off out for Race 2...

So, we had another tricky start, different place, not so much of a gamble but tricky all the same, it involved tacking in VERY close to the island stuffing into the wind and drifting up to the line as close to the pin-end as possible... we were slightly early, did a good job of holding our position, but drifted about a boatlength down from the pin... Cossey came in fairly late, but of course managed to use his late-spurt and subsequent momentum to squeeze inside of us.. it was a close call for whether either of us was over, there was a single recall flag, but a local boat at the other end of the line was over and hence blind-spotting the guys on the banck looking down the line :-)

So happy enough with the start, the rest of the race was flaming hard-work with Cossey and others battling hard, the wind shifting and bearly reaching sailable conditions, we managed to do a crap tack and get a fair bit of water into the boat which didnt help our overall weight and speed and things were damned close....If I rememebr rightly this is why I love Ent sailing, but at the time I wouldn't have believed you or me!

So the race timer ticked-on, we were in the lead then we weren't and by the time we got to the time in the race when it was shortend-course we were about one boat-length behind Cossey... arse...

So we were beating down the narrow channel between the island and the club-side of the lake... we were tacking well, using the shifts at the shoreline and keeping the power on, we crept a little closer to Cossey but not enough to get him into any tactical battle or port-starboard incident... as we reached the last mark (round the mark, out into the lake around the headland of the island and down to the finish), which was in a total water-like-glass (Icould see the bloody stress on my face if I looked onto the mill-pond water) area infront of the club... Mike Cossey did a not-so-good tack and was struggling to maintain momentum round the mark... we tacked better and made the decision to go high of Mike, maintaining what little speed/momentum we had we got level with him, he luffed (sensibly) and we had sufficient momentum to avoid him and creep into the lead (he didint look particularly happy!), we bore of around the "spit" and down toward the finish line...

Second race, second win... two bullets, two first places.. the event was ours... we had won!!!!!!

Mike called us jammy b*ast*rds, someone else called him the same 'cus he had done a jammy "stay-in-the-winf" move earlier in the race... we sailed in happy for once...

Cup of tea, bit of a chat and then back out for the last one.... we sailed like average-muppets but we didn't care.. Phil and his daughter Laura sailed an excellent race from start to finish and won easily... but we were happy...

So that was that for the Enterprise for another few months... Our first Enterprise Open Meeting Win for ages, I guess proves we can still do it on the local scene, if not on the national scene this year, hey ho...

So thanks James for a top sail in challenging conditions... we'll see what happens, or doesn't in the future..

But for now, raise your glasses in toast to the Soulsailors and their only 2007 Enterpise Open Meeting win...hurrah!

sailing boat soulsailor