Excalibur Sailing Team

15/06/11

Hi all!

Well wasn't that fun but very hard work. Last week Jo and I joined 16 other skuds in Weymouth to race at sail for gold. With over 700 entries in 12 classes the atmosphere was electric.

As we have only been sailing together for six weeks our goal was not to come last and we just about made that . This was also Jo's first ever race event she has participated in and she was amazing.

We started off cautiously on the first day in calm conditions but this was short lived. On the Tuesday the wind and waves had really picked up and we were struggling to control the boat but after one race  the  race officer  decided to cancel the  next one  because the wind had picked up even more. Wednesday racing was cancelled for the Paralympic classes due to the weather being too strong for our rigs. Due to the fact that we didn't race on Wednesday we had to make up Some races on Thursday. The wind was still strong but this was our best day so far picking up a 12th place! On the final day we had another 13th place in the final race even though we were over the line at the start. We had to go back across the line and by my estimates we were approximately 5 to 7 boat lengths behind the next boat. Considering this we had to do something drastic in order to make up this distance so we stayed on one tack almost until the mark and we had made up three or four places by doing this.
Our overall position was 16th out of 17 boats which was quite an achievement considering Jo has only been sailing for six weeks!

We are now booked in to do the IFDS world Championships the week after next in Weymouth with 18 skuds!


Keith