Greetings all,
Yesterdays sailing at Rua in my opinion was great……for several reasons. Once one had negotiated the potholes on the incoming road, we had a lovely southerly of excellent strength, plus my dog Cindy could greet the other dogs, plus the contractors had done a good job of clearing the excess vegetation, plus an incident of great delight happened, on which I will expand later, plus these commentaries give me opportunity to include “tsk, tsk’s” which gives Peter Bradley delight……..obviously another ex-comic reader.
Rodney Ford was RO assisted by Derek Kraak, and they set a 2 lap course in the aforementioned delightful breeze, and we had 17 starters which is a fair sized fleet. Personally, for some indeterminate reason, I always have a better chance of reaching podium status with a fleet totalling 3.
Once again the behaviour was wonderful and also a lot of humour was prevalent. During the day the wind eased steadily and although the race committee were intending a 9th heat, by then it was non-existent, however well done for getting 8 heats away.
Podium congratulations go to 1 Owen Henwood, 2 Graham Parratt and 3 Ron Bedyn.
Now to extrapolate on the incident previously alluded to, this to me was the highlight of the day and I will mention no names to ensure anonymity to those involved. If one peruses the results and zeroes in to the last placing in heat 6, one may well ponder such a placing for this unidentified sailor. Further study will reveal a low place of 14 for another unidentified sailor, but we are not finished yet. Further searching will uncover the brilliant placing of J 150 in this heat, tsk, tsk, tsk. Now bear with me while I uncover the plot.
Halfway through the heat, the order was 306 about 6th and 276 about 7th, and, 150 8th. Unfortunately (tsk, tsk) 306 and 276 collided (tsk, tsk), and 276 went into irons, during which period 306 was committed to successive penalty turns until 276 got under way….so sad. However, as 150 perceived this great misfortune an inner unholy delight was experienced as she sailed past her unfortunate comrades to victory. One must commend the unfortunate 2 sailors in their excellent behavioural handling of misfortune. Cheers Tom A