Last weekend I was away  (falling down mountains on planks) – I thought I was skiing OK until I fell and pulled something in my calf – I think I should stick to water – that’s much a much softer landing... However our intrepid bar tender reports...

3/4

5046   Paul Playle

3457   Mervyn Cinnamond

4073   Peter Cottrell

2040   Chris Smith

3142   Peter Renn

3861   Dave Clark  [ retired ] Gear failure.  Forestay snapped off at the hard eye as stainless steel is inclined to do . It would never have happened with galvanised wire.  He very carefully made it back to the pontoon under full sail without further damage,  which is down to his good seamanship under unusual circumstances.  He said it was impossible to tack as the mast was raked so far back filling the boat with boom and sail.   Well done that man.

Good sailing day with wind a steady top end of force 3,  plus a bit of sunshine thrown in for good measure.  Mervyn led the fleet in the later stages of the race but Paul slowly reeled him in and passed just before the finish. I'm not sure who won the pursuit as two of us were involved in rescuing a dismasted Solo brought down by chain shot.

I can’t do the results on the web site until I get home. Saturday sailing has started again, so for those looking for perhaps a gentler race we have two short-ish races Saturday afternoon. Generally these are slightly lower key than Sunday morning and are a great introduction to friendly racing. Last year we had a pretty good solo turnout on Saturdays. I will be looking to run some coaching / race training sessions once the season gets going. These will be on a few Saturday mornings where there is no clash with a local Solo open Meeting. I’m also looking at the possibility of a class association coaching/training day later in the season.

Those of you who follow the Class Association message board will know that there is a membership drive – the association does a lot for us being the guardian of our rules and class as well as keeping us in touch with excellent newsletters, dinghy exhibition etc. I think it is good value for the sub – at present we have only 8 members.  If you haven’t looked at the site it is http://www.solosailing.org there’s a lot of good information there as well as an active message board where you can ask other solo sailors for their views on almost anything.

I’m now working out how I want the control lines to run on my new boat (4859 is still available if anyone is interested) – don’t have a delivery date yet but she will is 5215 and she is now being fitted out.  Won’t be long now....

Hope to see you all soon.

Gareth