Woman Overboard! My version of what happened

I do believe the title of this post is self explanatory, on Sunday 9th of September, We were doing our regular sunday morning autumn series race and everything was going well, we had a great start and we had a successful beat to I and gone round the mark and hoisted the spongebob, and jez had passed me the spinnaker sheet to trim the kite, so using the technique i had been shown by Darren and Steve, i placed one foot on top of the hatch cover and bent my knees to use my weight to trim the kite instead my arms so i wouldnt get tired too quickly. For those of you who dont read the farr out blog here is a link to Jeremy Rees' version of events, Sunday Series Race 2- Girl Overboard! Here is my play by play of what in my own opinion happened, the kite collapsed a tiny bit so i went to pull it in but a smidge of a second before i pulled it in the ( as dictated in his blog post) "Impatient bloke in the pit" pulled it in, so then i was pulling on a pressure-less piece of rope to naturally i was going to go over the side. I was later told by giggling crewman of over yachts passing by that my dive was very good and got marked  4 out of 5 for the dive by phil samways and the farr out crew were marked 10 out of 10 for the recovery so when we are next asked have we practice our man overboard recovery recently we can actually say yes. It wasn't until after being on the boat for 5 mins i realised my phone was still in my pocket, i took it out of my pocket it and stared at in dismay. From this experience i have learned 4 things, 1. Bring a spare change of clothes and place it in my locker, this includes a towel and underwear, 2. wear appropriate shoes out sailing, 3. Not to bother trying to  dry ones clothes and underwear at the top of the wayfarer mast in the yard in full view of the club house, it wont dry and it just draws unwanted attention and 4. and most important of all, LEAVE ALL ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT DOWN BELOW DECK OR ON SHORE!!! 

The Sound of Silence

As William Shakespeare once said " Absence from those we love is self from self - A Deadly banishment."

I think an explanation is due for my absence from my Blog, As you already know i have been working very hard over at the Olympic Venue in Weymouth & Portland and due to my early hours, I have been unable to stay awake long enough to complete a post. More recently i have been Preparing for my further education in A levels at Budmouth College Sixth Form. Because I'm starting school again does not mean iv'e finished sailing for the year, I still have Saturday morning sailings, and the all exciting Sunday mornings so I can guarantee more up to date blog reports on the Saturday and Sunday winter series.

Dawn Till Dusk

After months of preparation the Day was finally here. On Arrival at the sailing club, we were met by yobs class captain Emma Stevenson and informed on what the plan was for the day... or to use her precise words, "just get out there and go sailing!" but  before we could do this we had to wait for the camera man to arrive to take the photo for the local newspaper, The Dorset Echo , which the report is available via this link, however, I do Worn ye of in my opinion, two badly produced contents of the report. First, the photo itself and i do apologise for my very creepy smile at the front and second of all the very huge mistake in the second Paragraph, "The group of 12 youngsters from Weymouth Sailing Club’s YOBs (Youth On Boats) raised around £800 for the Will Mackaness Trust through an all-day sponsored sail around Weymouth Bay." WRONG!! Ok, Yes we raised around £800 but it wasn't only for the Will Mackaness trust, it was also in aid of the yob's. Dawn Till Dusk. After setting off down the harbour in an RS Feva with my crazy friend Alice Norris, we attempted to take part in the first race of the day, but this was not to be, Alice decided to do some surprise tacks and gybes which ended in me being knocked out of the boat. With my cool Kodak sports camera i managed to get some nice videos when bobbing about in the water when waiting to be rescued. One of which can be viewed via you tube on the left hand side. After eventually getting the boat going again with the wise decision to let me drive, We managed to finish second place. After the end of this race, Alice decided to end her turn and head back in to get some rest, so i was left out to my own devices and to single hand the Feva. Started race two and got half way up to the first mark when i was joined by Cory Ronayne. We then did another race after this and then we sailed over to the pavilion to pose for more photos when i was again knocked out the boat in style. After this, i decided it was time to take a break and head in for a BBQ, after refilling with energy i headed back out... but another couple hours sailing was not to be for me, At this moment in time when i was single handing the Feva again was when all my limited hours of sleep decided to catch up with me. Therefore I could no longer concentrate so my good friend Katherine Samways brought me in and took me for a stroll round town before heading back out for the evenings youth on boats Squib Racing. I decided to take a step back and take a more instructing roll so i stepped onto safety boat with Ross Groves, and tow all the boats out into the bay because there was not Much wind, after getting my clothes thoroughly wet i set about lying down in the front of the rib and taking photos, this too didn't seem to be aloud because every 5 minutes, Yob's Coordinator Phil Samways decided to come along with a bucket of water and attempt to get me wet. After taking some amusing snapshots of the next Ben Ainslie and A man's attempt to save fuel.

We tried to start heading back in when we discovered that one of the Feva's bouyency tank caps had come off when the boat was capsizing, so the boat was half sunk in the water and i had to quicksticks learn how to drive the jaffa rib while Phil holded onto the Feva. First time round i think i did a pretty good job. Back at the club we then hosted a raffle draw. A total £800 was raised but i dont think anything more was raised than everyones enjoyment of the day in general.

Sponsored Sailing Event Preview

Coming up tomorrow from 9 am to 9 pm, the Youth on Boats are taking part in a dawn (teenage dawn) till dusk sailing event. Looking forward to it, all money raised will be given to the yob's and the will mackaness trust. Expect a Big blog report on sunday :D 

Olympic Series Medal Race

After an 8 hr shift working over at the Olympic Venue, watching a unsuccessful day of sailing medal races, for which all were cancelled due to the light wind, I couldn't wait to get out there myself and take part in our own Medal race on Farr Out. After many jokes about Adam's New hat we headed out into the bay for a gentle race around the Olympic course directly in front of the Nothe Fort, where our spectators included men in High-Vis Jackets and a bunch of seagulls. After a dodgy start which involved penalty turns on the line we headed up to the upwind mark with the full team on board (majority of whom were sunbathing). The only thing Steve reckoned would have made this evening any better was to have a Martini whilst sunbathing on the foredeck. Everything on this evening went very smoothly and we enjoyed plenty on friendly banter with boats we were passing.  In the overall series, we came 2nd, great result, Results Table available via the link

The Olympic Series - Anchors Down

2nd race of the Olympic series and an even more crazier idea for a race. The original idea for the race came from the A team mates Steve and Jez, and I do believe, Monday previous to this race Steve was saying to me whoever came up with this idea must be mad! The race involved starting the race with your anchor down and your sails down, it was an all in start so the dinghy's were doing 720's on the line. Vice Commodore Jez and Co were on race officer duty to Farr out did not sail. However, behaving like a typical Boat Tart, I jumped on board  the Sigma 33, Scoline, and enjoyed sorting out all the bunting before heading out to the line. While enjoying some banter about leaving the anchor behind to save time we didn't realise that we were floating across the line 4 mins early, a situation which was luckily easily fixed. As soon as the flags came down at 1900 hrs, the jib was hoisted straight away, anchor lifted and not long after the main was up and we sailing off, leaving boats behind us and following in the wake of an osprey. We did two laps going round the big red gate mark buoys where the official Olympic racing takes place, We were kept entertained by watching the you've been framed moment performed by nick frampton in his OK, rudder popped off, then watching making the difficult decision of whether to stay with the boat or to jump in the water, deciding to jump, he made the leap but didn't expect the boat to move backwards as he jumped so his graceful leap turned into a full frontal belly flop! Overall we came second in this race, good result i think but i don't believe my fellow members of the A team weren't particularly happy that we got such a good result when i was on a different boat. 

The Olympic series - Round the Nowhere Island race

During the Olympics, Weymouth sailing club were scheduled to not have any club racing during the Olympic racing but true to form, our Vice Commodore, Jez Rees, couldn't resist organising a couple of interesting and unusual  themed races to put together.
For the last week we have had the interesting and inspiring bit of artwork known as Nowhere Island which was until recently resting in Bowleze Cove. After our jaunt and adventure on Round the Island race in the Isle of Wight we chose to do a similar themed race called  Round the Nowhere Island race which simply involved going round the island twice. On Board Farr out we Had me, Jez Rees and Stephen Homan-berry, also known as the "A-Team". On this race night it was my turn to have my go on foredeck. The last time i had even sat in front of the shrouds was almost a year ago so i cant say my hopes on doing things correctly were that high. We set off with an all in start which made things awkward to try and head down wind so we could put the spinnaker up. Eventually, after battling with a Merlin Rocket sailing Dinghy, managed to get the right point of sail to hoist. Started off great, pre-feed was successful, started to hoist the kite when discovering the spinnaker halliard  was pre wrapped around the kite, drop, fix, start to hoist again, spinnaker halliard stuck between the shroud and boom. This seem to take 5 mins to sort out because of miscommunication, finally the kite was up, along with a big huge wrap which was soon spun out. Finally we were in are comfort zone and starting to get in our groove, the kite was great for the 5 mins it was up for. Rounding the island gave us a nice close up view of the artwork and with many exclamations of it looks a lot smaller than i thought it was going to be.  We then beated Quickly to the line and launched our asymmetric spinnaker, the "Spongebob" while reminiscing about the crazy idea and film of turning the asymmetric kite into a symmetric spinnaker so we could go a bit deeper downwind - How to turn an Asymmetric spinnaker into a Symmetric Spinnaker Also watching  the Dehler 33, Rocket get involved in a 5 minute chinese Jybe with there symmetric spinnaker.

After we eventually crossed the line we decided it was time to put the engine on....ooops!
Turns out our port spinnaker sheet had been previous to this trailing in the water for which it had now taken prime position wrapped round the prop..... oh dear. So desision was made to sail down the harbour and onto the mooring, easier said than done in my opinion. we decided it would be easier to moor up facing down the harbour rather than up which made getting onto the mooring less awkward. After avoiding a near escape with a sigma 33, Scoline,  and involving some quick fending work from me, we were finally on the mooring. After all this rough and tough, we got a result of 5th position out of 7, not the best result we've ever had but as my mum allways says, its not the winning that counts, its the taking part.

First sailing blog post

Just to give everyone a heads up on what my blog will be mainly about.
I'm a member of Weymouth sailing club in Dorset, England, A.K.A, where the Olympics are happening currently this year. I participate in club series races on a Laser 28, Farr out, and i also dinghy sail on my 420 called Wonderland. On the blog, i will telling you all about the thrilling adventures i have sailing. For example, races like round the island race, night races, youth on boat evenings and many more series races. 

What was left of our asymmetric spinnaker after Round the Island Race

Youth on Boats evening with the NZL Olympic Sailing Team

Me Helming on the Crews race on Farr Out