Sometimes the day just won't go the way you want it. Today was one of those days but almost entirely of my own making.
It started with a hair cut at home at 8.30 and that allowed me just enough time to get to Gosport which I would have done on time had it not been for a Waitrose lorry to practice reversing for 10 minutes just outside the entrance to the Gosport club. Slightly wound up I threw the boat together (checking all the settings and putting the boat on the water to get straight into the first race. All good so far.
The first few races went OK in mid range A rig conditions, but I was not reading the wind shifts very well and to be honest was a little bit sleepy. You could sum up the day with a description of a second beat in one of the races. There are two non racing marks on the beat and I managed to hit both of them stopping the boat dead. To be fair, it was hard to judge but I should have known better. Then I miss-judged a port starboard crossing and combine that with missing most of the shifts on the beat and finally a port tack boat sailed into me at the windward mark. I could have blamed lack of boat speed for my lack of performance but in truth it was lack of ability on the day, missing shifts and not driving the boat hard enough which was somewhat out of character.
To be fair the results weren't that terrible and I did remain calm and accepted whatever my position was in each race.
To turn this into a huge positive, there were 22 boats on the start line (3 observers in each race) and it was amazing practice. The combined Gosport/Emsworth fleet were out. Emsworth slipper pond water levels were down so prevented sailing there.
There is a strong contingent of sailors here so there is scope for significant performance improvement of the fleet.
My thanks to Paul Edwards again for organising a fantastic days sailing.
Here are the results
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