“Rusty” doesn’t even begin to cover it

The initial call went out from Captain Liz to see who was interested and who could make it. Various excuses were made – dodgy knees, work, moving boats and tennis to name just some. Even though Liz used the word “frisky” when describing the potential wind we had four brave ladies (it’s a start, not the normal number we used to get but we are in effect starting from scratch, much like many companies in our industry who haven’t seen a customer (or a £ note) for over 12 months.)

Before we launched we obviously had to discuss the trials and tribulations of getting into your favourite hairdresser and who was showing the most amount of grey (not me) and whose hair had grown most (me, 14 months of no haircut with at least 2 more months to go).

Then it was “what to do?”. Well, there was a Superyacht in at Poole Quay which was worth a sail by to see what we can’t afford and then maybe a triangular course or two to remind ourselves of what we have forgotten. But as the 4 are 4 of the keenest (they were there after all….) a race or two was requested.

Now when I mentioned rustiness and forgetting things.....

Well, due to “you know what” we have to man the rescue boats from family bubbles and the only member of my family bubble was Lis (with an S) and I KNOW that I told her about it but it seems that she had forgotten so she had to cancel a Sugaring appointment (there is nothing wrong with the “Mediterranean Look” – as it was described in Mrs Doubtfire).

This also meant that instead of Sue and Angie as my wing ladies we had Sue and Alan, enjoying quality time together – because which husband and wife hasn’t spent much time together in the last 14 months…?

I packed a pair of gloves for myself – when I say pair, I mean 2 gloves, but both were left-handed and only one was mine, the other was my daughters and she has hands several sizes smaller than me.

As we walked down the boat park my wife realised that she had forgotten a buoyancy aid. Luckily we had forgotten 4 lifejackets when we sold a boat last year so all we had to do was to break into said boat and retrieve them all.

And then when it came down to starting a race we had no stopwatch or sound signal and when it came to writing down the results we had no pen or paper with us, but we managed to cobble things together, borrow a pen from the club Bosun and steal a sheet of paper out of her printer (thanks Emma).

Frisky, twitchy and cold!!

Anyway, the sun was out, the wind was not “frisky”, but it was “twitchy” and “cold” and we set off for a quick ogle at Elandess (£92 Million) making sure that we didn’t get too close as the boats are insured but not for that much.

Then for a few shakedown races. A simple Windward-Leeward, finishing back through the start line.

If only Katy had listened. She would have won the first race but going the wrong side of the finishing line does not lead to a good position, but she had a few races to make up for it, which she did, ending up overall winner (in the Fusion fleet. Of 3). This hasn’t gone down well with Yvonne who found herself 2nd to last in the fleet, an uncomfortable position for her but she took it in good grace, as ever. Liz had some storming starts, not always technically legal, but let’s not let a few Port Starboards infractions get in the way of a start. Liz had to sail off early to get to work so we had a couple more races with the last race finishing at the marina entrance. Kay, in the only Laser, seemed to think that I meant Salterns Marina, which meant that Katy and Yvonne almost managed to overhaul her. Luckily Alan and Sue were able to put her right.

Obligatory post sail drink

Then coffee, hot chocolate and cake (for two that didn’t even sail but did provide entertainment on how to launch a boat – to be fair one of them did put on a wetsuit to do this. Just in case of course).

So, let’s see who turns up next week shall we???

PS If you want to watch some exciting sailing (we all know that sailing isn’t always the best televised sport) then watch the SailGP racing from last week in Bermuda, it’s on YouTube and is coming to the UK in July. The boats were getting up to speed of 90kmh. And crashing into each other.

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