Wednesday 6 June 2012

Another great weekend in the water. It should be on, however, my desire to swim seems to take over during sailing to such an extent that I spend more time swimming than sailing. I did not report earlier on my interesting day on an X boat, garnered as a result of being overly friendly in the Coop, I spent a Saturday in the sun in the Solent on an antique, with two strange men. They were not strange, just strange to me. I  did not have to do much except jump from side to side and hike out to keep the boat balanced. And now and then pull a rope. It was a lovely old boat, nice company and an interesting experience, seeing how the other half lives, drinking Pimms on the pontoon in Hamble. We came last or near last in each of the three races, due to navigational errors. Glad I was not solely reponsible for navigation then! I was interested to see the differences between dinghy sailing and day boats. You can not capsize a keel boat, which sounds appealing. It was VERY slow though...

After an utterly random day with Tim and Neil, it was back to familiar waters this weekend with my fast track Olympic training with George. We had an awesome sail on Saturday, with me learning so much that it hurt my brain, as well as all other bits of me, to such an extent that I struggled to walk on Sunday. You know the machine at the gym, the leg press? Well, I essentially did about 2.5 hours of leg pressing, without a warm up. My thighs could double up as girders on a building site, so strong are they now. I was trying to reduce my tack time (from 15 minutes down to 5 seconds), trying to get the hang of hanging on to the wire, and trying to get the hang of flying the spinnaker, after hoisting it quickly, and then lowering it even quicker. That is quite a lot of learning for one day. Sunday was spent going for a jog ( thought it would help the legs, but made them worse) and then lying down mostly. Actually A and I had a lovely time together doing errands, as due to her broken arm she is off sailing duties and spending her time mostly painting. She spent Monday learning to windsurf with a broken arm. On shore, I may need to explain that for the panicking grannies among you! H crewed for R in 4 races over the weekend, and they did well in a couple of them. She wisely saw the wind yesterday and stayed asure, so R had a go singlehanded again. He can not walk, but he can sail and cycle, so that's ok. He went to hospital last night and had an X ray and may have broken some small freaky bones by his big toe.

Monday and Tuesday we raced. Team GB have nothing to fear. A combination of hapless amateur crewing and misreading of the course we were sailing, with the addition of too much time spent swimming around rather than in the boat, we managed to finish two of the 3 races, and then found that one of those we were over the start line and therefore it didn't count. Hey ho. The upside was a lot of big smiles and some awesome speed, and me actually getting slightly better at a few things.  The traditional Netley vibe lasted all weekend, with a street party, disco, band and finishing with a raffle and prizegiving in a cosy club house with 25 knots of wind outside and mist which cancelled the Red Arrows. H would not let me dance at the disco ( mum you are embarrassing) so I returned to the old people's table and drowned my sorrows in another drink...

We have done 3 nights in campo, and usually I sleep badly for night one, then fab for the rest of the time. However this trip I have been awake way to early in the morning. We came home last night to get warm and dry and despite sleeping in my own bed I still woke before 5. Aargh. My body is still on term time hours, thinking it needs to get up at 6.30 when it doesn't.

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