Can I get off now please.......

Race day and the weather could not have been more different.....heavy rain was upon us and the conditions didn't improve much....a minor understatement !!!

We completed the first race, coming over the line with a "toot" from the race boat gave a great sense of achievement. We didn't have enough experienced crew to use our spinnaker for the downwind legs of the race which slowed us up.....but we also didn't come last !

The next race proved to be more interesting !!! The wind by now had got up quite a bit, lots of people used the spinnaker and got into some real problems with them. Quite a few ended up flying them out of control due to the wind.....a very dangerous situation to be in......and much to our horror we also saw a boat go right over. The occupants on board must have been terrified. We later heard everyone was ok.

We didn't fair any better, one of our smaller sails got caught up in the wind and could not be put away, several of the crew had to go on deck in the bumpy conditions to try and get the sail under control. Retiring from the race we limped into Cowes Yacht Haven club and moored up for the evening.

The Saturday night of the Regatta is a dinner dance in the club house in Cowes, while at dinner the conditions outside got much worse. Sails came undone, boats broke lose, bits snapped off..... there was the offer of staying in the club house for the night instead of getting back on the boats but with no bedding we made our way back down the pontoons and climbed aboard....no easy feat with the pontoons and the boats bouncing round all over the place it was scary. We had a sleepless night.