Traveller - Poole

[Tim Noyce]

I am pretty sure that the top 3 was Graham and Eddy in 3rd, Andy and Jill in 2nd, and... wait for it... Team Badgers Nadgers in First! We are most pleased with the result as this is the first time we have won a race at an event, let alone a whole event. We have come close on a few occasions, but managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory every time up to now. One memorable time was at Kielder when we dumped it in on the last run to let Will and Lucy through in Beans!

Our memories from the weekend... (apart from winning ;-) ) was the incredibly short and tight course crossing Mirrors, Toppers, Lasers, GP14's... etc, some excellent wind on Saturday, a brilliant hog roast and sun all weekend! Does it get any better than that?!

I will give Graham a chance to put some words down if he has time, but in the meantime I need to say thanks to Roland and Hayley for bringing the Badger down to Poole in the first place, despite it making a bid for freedom on a number of occasions... and also to Dave for taking the Badger home again to assist in its onward journey to Thornbury in a couple of weeks. It really is great to have people about who will literally go out of their way to help fellow class members, it makes me proud to be a member of such a great class!

Jill and Andy, I collected your Trophys which I can post or give to you when I see you next.

[andy_peters]

Trophies, my word didn't realise there were some pots in the offing.  If you could bring them to the Nationals that will be fine.  Don't waste any money on postage.  Well done for keeping the sails by far the dryest on Saturday.  Well derserved win. 

Tricky racing with all those slower boats chomping upwind on our course and tiring for the crew as the course was so small.  We enjoyed it all, but by the third race Jill was knackered  - she really does all the work, I just point the nose in roughly the right direction.

[Graham Bridle]

Well this coming third and having to write up rule seems like a good incentive to be 4th.

The good news is that most of the detail has been covered above, which is just as well as my ability to retain data at this level left me several pints of lager ago.

What I can confirm, is that there was some swimming, but not as much as the reader may perceive, I think at least 3 boats (RV, UY and BN) made race 1 without a swim and Ronin maybe only one.

The races really were gruelling, I reckon a lap was taking about 9 minutes, 4 laps per race;  as we rounded the top mark in the 2nd race my watch bleeped as we hoisted ... it bleeped one minute later as we dropped ... so its not surprising that there were a few more swims later as tired limbs came into play. I know Eddie was moaning like a big girls blouse and I have him on double homework this week as pennance.

Other things of note :-

• Often very close racing between all boats with places switching at marks regularly, this is shown in the results below
• Incredible boat handling practice navigating lasers on the start line, mirrors, toppers, GP's and XOD's during the course, hairy and often dowsnright dangerous!
• Excellent speed from shiny (before spinnaker issues) and ronin (before swims and dagger board snappage) and Pasta Frenzy (before I am not sure which issues !)
• And of course Roland/Hayleys amazing blast (I didnt see this but he told me to say it !)

I dont have a copy of the results, but I reckon they must look something like this

1 - Badgers Nadgers  3,1,1
2 - UY (God knows how you spell it) 1,2,3
3 - Riot Van 2,3,2
4 - Ronin 4,4,4 ?

Shiny, Slippy and Pasta Frenzy, sharing breakage honours

please feel free to edit !

[phil_kirk]

Sounds like good boat handling practice.

We had a weekend at Thornbury. sarah sailed her byte at the laser /byte open on saturday and came 5th overal.  The amusing bit!   Race one started with getting to the line too early near the port end bearing away and running out of water.  Even with the byte's short daggerboard! after a Le MAn style start sghe caught up one place to finish 4th. 
lesson to all for two weeks time, the line is on a shore transit and although the mud is quite soft, you can't sail through it.

the wind also started light and built to a 4-5. 

We planned to do the long distance race to sharpness.  Similar conditions as Poole with winds 20-35 knots.  race canned and a round the cans race put on for those wishing to sail.  We decided that we were not capable  in E-Numbers in these winds and chickened out.  Atum had visited Thornbury for the day and with Tim in the front launched to take part. 

Launching:  well wading the boat to the end of the mud spit. sailing off, capsizing putting the t foil down and then all went better. Showing off before the start by goose winging the jib on a dead run.

Atum hooned around the course after some more early capsizing and had some most 21+ knots reachs/runs. They eventually caught back up with the topper, laser 4.7 and the Ent and had to sail a lot more distance on the run to put the kite up and avoid a long two sailer. After an hour's race they took line honors.  Both were apparently broken although had that Cheruby grin all over their faces.

later i had the job of taking the byte back to Frampton.  Still windy so I sailed it in the pursuit race and came second.  I had my sailing fix for the weekend.

[dave_ching]

No breakages on Shiny.
Just some creative kite work.
It had a beautifuly crafted stem and a sterdy flat base with room for at least one bottle.

[Will_Lee]

Sounds legendary! Well done Noycey and Alex - excellent skills!

W

[Tim Noyce]

I have a few photos from the event, sadly only 2 proper sailing shots as the rest are rigging ones. This is a personal fave though!

[MK]

Epic!

[john_hamilton]

tim, epic
well done also
thats a publ;icity shot for the class if iv ever seen one!