So after a few weeks off sailing for important "having a baby" type activities I managed tog et back on the water today.... and what a day to pick...
Spring decided to vacate and leave winter to reside over the reservoir... me and the eldest legged it over to Draycote after lunch to do the pursuit race in the Miracle.
When we got there it was chilly, sub 5 degrees I think with a northerly breeze around 10mph... we rigged the boat quickly, got changed, sorted the course out and got out the start-area...
It was a good breeze for us, we had a quick practice on the beat and checked the kite was rigged up OK then got into the groove for the race...there wasn't huge turn-out, about 35 or so from a good range of classes. Before us was a Topper with a good bit of distance on us, there were two Miracles on our start, the line was biased towards the pin-end and we managed to get a good start down the pin end and tacked across onto starboard ahead of the other Miracle and on our way.
So we had a good beat, my son was sailing well and we were enjoying a good breeze we were catching the Topper and the Solo's (the next start), the next leg was a long, long reach....but it was too tight to fly the kite, major bummer... so we sailed and chatted as the Solo caught us, quick gybe and then kite-up... another boat passed us and we carried on up the second beat in good spirits, cold but happy.... then back out came the kite, son was doing really well after not sailing for a while and we had a good reach...that was until...
...from the north the skies darkened, the breeze started increasing, very slightly and a little snow cam in the air... then I could see some large gusts and a snow storm coming over the water...oh crap! We got the spinnaker down as the gust was almost approaching us and then sheeted in and planed really nicely towards the next mark... it was a little scary for my son, snowing fairly hard, breezy and extremely cold with the gybe mark fast approaching...obviously not wanting to freak him out completely we bore round and despite having brain freeze from the snow and biting wind, we carried on for the rest of the race, sailing pretty well and, apart from the cold, having a good sail...
So we ended up about 21st out of 35 or so....happy that we'd got out on the water and sailed our best without too many issues...At the prize-giving we got a DWSC glass each for being "first Miracle" which was awesome and made my eldest son's day, he was stoked.. I let the youngest go up with him to get the prizes which he loved... may as well get them both used to prize-givings for when they become yachting superstars!!
1 comment:
Awesome. Taking your kid sailing in a blizzard. What a great Dad. Now any normal day of summer sailing is going to seem easy to him.
A word of caution though about getting your kids too accustomed to prize-givings. I've seen kids get so used to receiving a prize every time they sailed with their superstar father that when they started sailing on their own they got upset when they discovered that they didn't win a prize at every regatta any more.
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