Some time ago, Emily Bronte, she of “Wuthering Heights” fame, ventured the opinion that, “May is the month of expectation, the month of wishes, the month of hope.” If you’re kind enough to read on you’ll find out whose desires were fulfilled and whose hopes lived up to their expectations. One thing that I can reveal is that May has been full of sailing incidents for our fleet, and the Rasputin Pot has made regular appearances!
It would be nice to be able to write that May’s sailing began with a bang, but, in truth, the sail of May 1^st was more of a whimper! However, thanks to the stern words given to the fleet by our ‘Captain’, 15 boats braved the prospect of battling with a fickle wind. If you remember Graham’s report the success of the race was, in large part, thanks to Fi’s skill in setting a course which anticipated the mood of the wind (feminine intuition?). The final Wednesday race of May followed a similar pattern with the management team recording a wind across the course that ranged from 200 to 320 degrees! It’s interesting to note though, that despite the challenging conditions (or maybe because of them?) the glory of winning in the five Wednesday afternoon races was spread amongst some familiar names: Crispin and Steve, aka, ‘Mr Wednesday afternoon’; Pete & Jo, and Ian and Mike. One final event of note was the return of Steve Brown onto Crispin’s boat. This  immediately followed on from the success of Crispin and Nick Cornish in the ‘Big Fleet’ race – no pressure then! Thankfully for future harmony, they won- well done Steve!
Saturday’s racing in May was a bit of a curate’s egg. It began with a race on a notable date (see Patrick’s report), and the force was definitely with Jo and Pete. Interestingly, Crispin noted that four of the first five boats were manned by, how shall I put this; people with whom JK Rowling would be happy to share a public convenience (gender identification minefield successfully negotiated, or what?). That was a joke for Graham and Sara – just look at the results for May 4^th for clarification. In the next race of the series another South-easterly wind gave us the dubious pleasure of navigating our way to NC 2 for what seemed the umpteenth time in a fortnight. On 3974 we tried every variation of left, right and centre over the course of numerous visits to this dastardly mark with wildly fluctuating results. Our last go gave us the ‘excitement’ of watching the whole fleet round before us! Judging by the conversations in the bar at the end of these excursions, I don’t think any team read the runes successfully on every occasion.
Despite a great deal of planning, the mini series, taking place in the bay, was abandoned due to the absence of wind. However, the apres-sail social event went ahead, where we enjoyed the company of the Ilca fleet, and the gastronomic gifts of the male members of our fleet. Although, I’m reluctant to enter into a gender debate, I must mention that two men in the fleet ‘cheated’ but I’m too much of a gentleman to name them! Pride of place must go to Steve Randle’s scotch eggs. Since they didn’t make themselves, I guess all the praise must be heaped on Steve; they were delicious. There was a non-counting club race on the 25^th but this newsletter will concern itself with another event, in the ‘top triangle’, namely; the Paints Regatta.
For a fuller account of this, you should catch up with Andrew Currell’s excellent report. To give you a flavour of the event though, I am able to announce that we sailed so many triangles, I feel fully qualified to hold my own with Pythagoras himself! Although, with sailing 23 triangles over the course of three days, a sense of monotony developed, or as Yogi Berra famously put it, “It was déjà vu all over again”, it has to be said that the reaches were exciting and the reach to reach gybes ( yes, you’ve worked it out, 23 of them!)fully concentrated the mind. On 3974, we joined the ‘sailing in 30kts club’ for the first time and even survived to tell the tale. Bob and Huw’s results for the week-end were impressive (their one discard was a 2^nd place!), but even they decided to two-sail the second reach on occasion. The lightweight crews in the fleet (I’m definitely not a member – but Lisa definitely is) had their work cut out and can be proud of sailing every race of the regatta. I have to say to Andrew Currell that being able to call on the services of his insanely fit son should be banned in future. I didn’t know it was possible to be laughing aloud whilst reaching in 30 kts of breeze- well done to them. It has to be said that my outbursts were far less jocular!
Whilst we are on the subject of people at the front of the fifteen, I note that Aly Baxter has made great strides in the competition for which crew has had the most positive effect on the speed of their boat. She even managed to knock Steve Brown off his pedestal in that famous May the 4^th race (although I hear that Crispin’s poor navigation may have had an input in that contest!). That should be a salutary lesson to all those who accused Aly of sun bathing on the deck when, in fact, she was supervising her helm’s handiwork with the mast. I think an even greater achievement was tearing Patrick away from his Star Trek DVDs on such an auspicious day!
I did begin by writing that the Rasputin Pot has been awarded frequently this month, Ian Zimmerman, Mike Barton, Simon Flack and Andrew Currell all being involved to one degree or another, not to mention David McLeman who discovered that using the keel as a dredger had undesired consequences. We do have other award winners but I won’t name them here because, as yet, they haven’t had the pleasure of being publicly exposed in the bar. Similarly, we do have the results for May’s Wednesday and Saturday sailors of the month but you’ll have to wait for the official presentations in the bar.
Well, that’s it for May. This is definitely not in the same class as Beethoven’s re-working of Schiller’s poem, but it is my ode to the joy of sailing the fifteen in May!
Let’s hope that, for the coming month, Juno keeps Jupiter in check so that his thunderbolt stays in his locker!
JK