12s – Saturday Training 8th September

Saturday morning was looking fantastic – the sun was out and the day was warming up.  The problem of no start boat diminished, as we had the gate key and wind!
Squid and Challenge met down at the park for a bit of two boat training.  We were shortly joined by a confused looking Bmad in dark glasses, turns out he left his skipper at RQ.  A lone 18 also joined us, buoyed by the news that Ben Cross (Ghetto Sled) could take them for a sailing lesson.

As we launched, the westerly dropped to nothing and was shortly replaced by a 12 knot NNE’ly, perfect for our big rig.  Squid and Challenge went out and did a few laps of the bay, using an RQ mark for some cheeky practise roundings.   Brad and Chris on the Animals had a great time out with the second rig, I hear they didn’t even capsize.. another box ticked!  The run from the tip of Green to Raby Bay was spectacular – after a few gybes here and there we let Squid free – the boat was flat, we stretched back in the harness to see the centreboard just out of the water.

Enough of our own fun, we swapped boats with Terry and Wayne in Challenge – Terry wanted to see what “his new boat” was like, and we were keen to experience life aboard a historic 12.  The beat back to the top of green wasn’t quite what we’d planned, with Challenge making ground on Squid.. but we fell out of the groove once and were left behind.    Things were interesting at the top mark, going for the hoist we were presented with a tangle of ropes, whole spools of them laying in the bilge.  Aboard Squid, with the ropes trimmed short, Terry and Wayne were also in new territory.
Got the kite up, Terry and Wayne had rolled us by now and were now looking back at their ‘C cup’ kite.  Squid looked pretty damn good too, gotta say…

Ben