Sail Chat 10th December 2023- Children's Xmas Party day

At first, around 10.30 am it looked like this was going to be a Frostbite in rain, wind and stream that would live in infamy. However by 11.30 the general opinion had swung to 'not so bad.' By 'general' I would like to identify Hywell Perkins and crew Hannah Bridger (who aced it), and James Peel, George Bell and David Gettings in their respective single handers. Normally it takes half an hour or more to get to the E mark in this sort of stream but today we all belted along on the Southerly breeze and it only took ten minutes to round it. Hywel and Hannah took 5 minutes. And we all took 1.5 minutes to the leeward mark at H (m) which was fun as we skated around H leaving it to starboard. James ate more Weetabix and so won the Handicap never having lost his advantage over the two old lags chasing him down. George came second and David contrived to lose another race by failing to negotiate the outer distance mark properly which in his opinion was probably under water in the angry current anyway.

James Warren set the marks once he had identified at least one mark that doesn't drift towards Hampton Court . His ADO John Heath was half ADO and half mechanic as he repaired the water pump in the ferry. Chris Bell released George for one hour from his catering role so he could sail, while she held the fort. Ian hovered between the kitchen and the bar manned by Andrew, which was engulfed in the aroma of juice, fruit and cloves mulling on a hot plate. And by no means least, kudos to Dorothy Heath, holed up in the TK box with a very furry friendly Dogwood.

Last updated 4:14pm on 13 May 2024