Latest Sports Report

Here is my 'Old Man of the Sea' squeezing up to the mark during one of the races.
This is a better one for seeing both their faces but they're not sailing as well here. The idea is to keep the boat as flat as possible to maximise the power of the sails. No 2 Son needs to get out there on the edge more quickly methinks!

They have had a frustrating series towards the end; as they got everything tuned right.....things started to break. They snapped their tiller losing a race where they had been placing in the top 10. They then had two bad races where they made mistakes and finished around about 23rd and 16th. Yesterday was a disaster with high winds and very dangerous conditions. They capsised early on and No 2 Son, seeing his boot drifting away, swam off to get it. Cardinal Rule #1. NEVER leave the upturned boat!!!!!!!!!!

Within minutes they were separated by 100m of ocean and Himself, in that superhuman strength you get when you think you child is in danger, righted the boat and singlehandedly sailed it back to No2 Son who was bobbing up and down in a 2 metre swell. Son was so exhausted that he tried to climb into the boat from the side immediately capsising it again. This time they got it up more quickly as there were two of them but Himself was so exhausted he had to wait in the water for 5 minutes before he got enough strength to climb back in over the stern. The jib was tangled around the mast and Himself was all for untangling it and continuing the race. So many other boats pulled out that if they had simply finished they would have moveed up a place in the overall rankings. But it wasn't to be. Son was exhausted and had had enough. He's a much more slightly built character than Himself and just didn't have enough energy left. They ended up with a DNF.

So another 11th and then a nearly 4th until the tiller broke again and it was a frustrating end to the series. They came 18th overall but this was a huge improvement on last time and they have learned a lot so they're hoping to come back, fix all the broken bits and do better in the State Championships.