First Sail

Nathan, Ben and I tipped at the Sailing Club about 11. Ben went off with Mel (the commodore) to fix a blocked impeller on Nickel Coin.

Nat and I fiddled about with the rigging on Plum Crazy. We still don't know how to set up the spinnaker. Lots of people said I should have entered the MR open tomorrow BUT I only have sailed the P.C. 3 times I was not ready to humiliate my self.

Boat rigged the usual wags asked if we were racing today again NO we are not ready.

So we launched and ran out the river. Nice breeze and flat sea looks good for a nice sail.
After a bit we got to the start line and then headed off down wind away from the race. We were playing rock-and-roll down wind until we put the centre board down. The wind slowly freshened until we were struggling and didn't know why.

I spotted white horses and that was the time to head home. Nat had a school leaver's party to go to so that was it.
Well I have not yet got the balance between dumping the main and sailing just off the wind. So as we headed back to Weymouth we lost it big style ! MR turtle as my first capsize. It was not quite so funny now. We recovered it and the auto bailers did their job and we headed home.

The wind was up and I was still struggling with sailing just off the wind to get home and not dumping power to stop scooping water. All was going well until we reached the river.

We met a Dutch Yacht that didn't have a clue. I dipped behind him then scooped a boat full. I tried to turn and no go. I failed to dump the mail and we capsized in the river mouth. This was the start of a very slow up river passage.

As we were full of water and only 50 mm of free-board and healing on power would swamp the boat. The steering was a dog and the river busy. All in all not a fun experience.
Eventually we got in, Tanja watched the painful progress for 40 minutes. We had an altercation with a day fishing boat and I ignored the Squibbs as I was not in a position to avoid them even on Port.

Jim caught the bow and Tanja had the trolley. Stress off, we drained PC and then watched the maroon for the life boat go off. Some other bugger was getting worse than we did.

Nat was knackered and he pushed off while I de-rigged the boat. We parked up and had a chat with Ian's wife. She agreed that Rockets don't turn when full of water, MRs don't play fair when it gets up a bit and 2 tons of water cannot no matter how had you try be balanced against by 2 blokes.

MR Open meeting tomorrow. I got chatting to a bloke who parked next to Plum Crazy, his boat is also painted purple !