I arrived Saturday morning, at a decent time, boat mostly rigged and the team pretty much all assembled, vaguely sober... i think, and certainly enjoying the sunshine and atmosphere... the sailing shifts were all worked out, 2 hour shifts, I was on at 4:30pm on Sat afternoon and then again at 4am, Stevie and Rich were having 3 stints and Youngy and Jon were havbing two like me... So boat was launched, the guys practiced (see video on Facebook or YouTube later) and the start happened, bang on 12pm as always... Birdy played hard-ball and screwed Rich up at the start, though Richy should have realised he'd be a git if you got anywhere near him be it in a 1 hour race or a 24 hour marathon! But Richy looked pretty quick (his boat and a set of Steve's P&B rags) so the flights went off successfully and the rest of the team sat back by the water, grabbed some hot-pot and a beer and watched the racing... Specky (Hallamshire SC) was scarily slicing his way from flight 4 forwards in the space of a lap, and the natural order of things between the GP14's, Larks and Enterprises was forming.
So all good, we were top 10 the sun was still shining, old and new friends and aquaintences were made and life at Southport was at its usual goodness... So after a few hours of chilling, browsing for new jackets in the chandelry, chatting etc the Commodores Reception started.... yeeeha.. so myself as Commodore and the newly and temporarily appointed Bosun of SoulSailor Racing Association went to the 3pm Commodores reception, met the other commodores from the 70 teams taking part and our hosts, the respected flag officers of West Lancs and Southport yachting clubs... oh and of course plenty of free chanpagne and nibbles... a few hours later I emerged, feeling refreshed and ready for my first stint of racing the Ent, with crew Shona. So the change over went well, and after a bit of a shaky start to the leg (I blame the chanpagne bubbles), we got into our stride.. sailing is tricky at Southport, lots of boats, varying quality of experience in the other boats, constant battle to remove weed from the rudder and centreboard and of course the level of alcohol in the blood-stream of the competitors, but things were good, boat sopeed fine, my tacical head seemed ok and Shona and me were getting on fine in the boat... by the time we were on the boat we'd already had one penalty (1/4 lap), by the time our two hour slot was done we'd amassed another 1/4 lap penalty... bloodt marks and lack of rudder caused lack of control and bump rounding the leeward one! Hey ho... its all good... and we managed to finish our stint sinside the top 15, wicked!
So handed the boat over to Youngy and got changed ready for pizza (thanks Jon) and Gin and Whiskey and beer and lots of great music cool people and larfs....oh yeh just remembered Steve got thrown into the lake Friday night and fell in helping with our changeover he he he he he...
Anyway the night progressed as it always does, more food, lots and lots of drink and general frivoloties at the marquee and the two sailing clubs and outside Richies van... I bought myself a new Gill jacket...whilst under the influence, waking up in the morning, remmebering buying and hoping I still liked it was an experience!! Anyway...evebntually I crawled into a vacant tent (sorry Jules & Jon) and passed out... repeated attempt to shift me from Alex and Jules failed, but eventually around 3:30am Jules broke through my slumber I quizzed her over why the freakin hell would I want to be waking up at 3:30am and the who am I where am I and what should I be doing were quickly answered by Jules.. off I toddled, got changed, met up with Shona and had a very ver strong coffee and went out yachting in the dark (I love it!)... Night sailing is great because you really do have to concentrate on how the boat feels rather than the burgee (which you cant see)... the bad bit was my head was absolutely splitting.. hangover had kicked in very early this year! The breeze was a little stronger, so we could afford a little more rudder down which helped the feel of the boat drastically and we actually felt in a groove, passing boats (Lark, GP's as well as Ents) and nothing was passing us... so after another wicked 2 hour sail we handed the boat ont the next guys and stumbled to shore... checked the results and at 5am we had gotten upto 11th overall fan-bloody-tastic! So got changed crawled into my car onto the air-bed pillow and snuggly sleeping-bag and crashed from 6am till 9am.. got up got dressed, the coat I bought was great, smile on face, time for coffee, breakfast and watching the racing... by 10am (just as the ladies race started, most laps completed by an all-girl team inbetween 0am and 11am) the breeze piped up quite drastically and the rest of the morningwas spent chatting coffee and watching boats plane past the club, capsize on the changeover or just go wobble, wobble, splash infront of us...fantastic spectator stuff....
So at 12pm the race finished, we packed up grabbed lunch, watched prize giving, found out that despite going really well in the last few hours, our 3/4 lap penalty meant we just missed out on a prize and being in the top 10...
11th overall and 4th Enterprise, but we were happy....
Thanks and bloody well done to everyone on the team...it was special!
So, i'm absolutely knackered now, need sleep dont need alcohol need sleep....
sailing boat