You’re only as good as your last race
If you’re only as good as your last race - then after this weekend
I’m not very good at all!
It started off badly and only got worse. I naively accepted an
offer to sheet for a random guy called craig on his “new” 16′ skiff
for Saturday. Now when I turned up at midday to go sailing, I found
that the new (new is one way to describe it - but I wouldn’t) boat
only had a #2 rig… on a #1 rig day! An absolute ridiculous waste
of time going sailing in light airs in a boat that’s geared for
blowing-dogs-off-chains conditions. Anyway, lets put that one down
to experience. I’ve vowed never to sail such a lemon of a boat
again - what a woftam. We didn’t come last, but that doesn’t say
much for the people behind us.
So I was looking forward to Sunday.
The 18′ racing was just a bad - but probably more disappointing.
The start was painful with the boat going into irons as the fleet
sailed away. We rounded ok and the fleet stayed close. Slowly
(literally) we dropped back, and back, and back til there was
pretty much no-one behind us - and at about that time we finished -
thank christ for that. We didn’t break all that much tho, only both
pulleys on the spinnaker halyard - so it wouldn’t go up or down
(lucky the race was only 2 laps). We also broke something at the
gooseneck - at least there was a sickening bang on the last work.
There was nothing visibly broken when we got to the beach, but I
wouldn’t be suprised to see the rig fall out of the boat if we
don’t do a pretty thorough check over things.
It is such a pain having things breakdown when you’re sailing, but
we effectively need to throw a chandlery full of kit at the boat to
get everything working as it should. erk.
So we’re struggling to qualify for the Worlds right now. 3 heats to
go, with a lot of catching up to do.
And did I mention I’m off for a flying (literally) visit to
Melbourne to see if Mothing is back in fashion….
