The first part of a Day Skipper and Competent Crew course was distinguished by good weather and we anchored overnight in Worbarrow Bay. We rowed ashore and walked up to Tyneham the village evacuated as part of the preparations for the D-Day landings. After having taken in the marvellous surroundings and seen the houses, church and school we returned through the woods towards the Bay only to come upon a Red Deer Stag who continued to graze oblivious of us stood 10 yards away.
You can only visit when the range isn’t firing and part of the course is to ascertain when this is without getting shot, fortunately the would be Day Skippers passed this bit OK.
Our other stops included Studland and Cowes in a programme which had to be modified due to less wind than forecast.
The first weekend in September was a windy one and we swapped from the Royal Ocean Racing Club race to Cherbourg to the Junior Offshore Group one to Poole. This involved merely beating out of the Solent into a gale as opposed to crossing the whole channel against one. There were numerous retirements and we were happy to finish 12th out of the 25 who had entered. The return race from Poole to Cowes was 27 miles and we had the Spinnaker up almost all the way in 20kts of wind. We came 8th out of the 25 entered in the class covering the 27 miles in 2 hrs and 46 minutes and one second—just under 10 kts speed over ground which included some exciting surfing, one minor spinnaker wrap and a couple of minor broaches.
Posted: September 8th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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