Blog » Shifty Saturday followed by Hardcore Sunday

The NJS and CNC combined forces this last w/e at Grafham. The 29er Transition Squad and I'm not quite sure which Laser squad were next door at the watersports centre simultaneously. Although we couldn't really get to see Jack Hawkins, Chris Thomas, Ollie Cooper, James Poyner, Ben Davies, Tristan Ellis and Ben Gratton they did appear to be having fun blasting up and down in their waterborne missiles. Wonderful to to catch up with Jo and James Hawkiins too - some things never change and James attached to a pair of binos is one of them! Greatly enjoyed their gatecrashing the social at the Wheatsheaf on Saturday evening.

Better mention the sailing too! Saturday was full on with races, starts and windshifts. Temperatures were pretty mild until midafternoon but Grafham gave Niall exactly the conditions he needed for the days main aim - windshifts. Pretty much everybody had their moments of glory (in fact I'm not sure that anyone didn't hog some limelight at some point!) but arguably the swiftest on the day were (in no particular order) Cathy & Francine, Owen & Charlie and Morgan & Herbie. Midafternoon the sky went grey, definition was lost in the universal greyscale, the dayglow pink kites in both the 9ers and the Fevas weren't visible only half way across the lake, the rain came down and the wind went AWOL whilst the temperature came down by 5C in about 10mins. All came ashore warmed up, debriefed and socialised in approximately that order. Half the parents were dutifully waiting in the Wheatsheaf for kids to arrive - clearly the rugby on the telly had nowt to do with such forward planninig and personal sacrifice! Photo from the Sat I think...

Sunday morning - what a difference. Anyone oldfashioned enough to have listened to the Maritime forecast on radio 4 on Sun morning would have been prepared but even so the forecast was something I hadn't heard before - 'Dover: Gale force 8, Strong Gale 9. Storm force 10, 11 and occasional Hurrican Force 12!'  Blimey - that made you sit up and listen... Anyway Grafham isn't exactly next to Dover but even so. By launch time the wind was according to the club anemometer between 23 & 28kn all all the time with 25 being a reasonable average. Air temp was 5.7C - with windchill that was -4.5! Off they all went anyway for a morning of gybing practice. Pretty spectacular from where the armchair  experts sat. Having spent almost an hour and half afloat in grim conditions in the morning it wasn't surprising that a number of invalids appeared in the afternoon. It still didn't stop most from venturing out in equally cold but no longer rainy conditions. The finale was a very long beat followed by a very long run in 16-20 knots with plenty of adrenaline.

The upshot of the adrenaline dump during the day was a fairly quiet car on the homebound drive with plenty of the strangest conversation imaginable interspersed by slumber. What is it with recurring dreams that makes them so vivid and discussable!