Safety Boat Duty

Today was the MRX & Firefly Open Meeting. At the Welsh Harp we class the race days as A, B and C. On A days no other craft is allowed until after racing. On B days, no other racing is allowed. On C days other racing is allowed but the C event has priority and chooses the course. And if an event is marked as z then it means that it’s zoned and it uses only part of the lake and the rest can be used by other clubs/sailors. So, today was an A day, so no sailing for Lasers. And since the MRX sailors run the Laser Open, the Laser sailors have to run the MRX Open. Pete decided to race a Firefly and Jane crewed for him. So we were short by two people.

I was on a safety boat with Dennis. Dennis is a guy that when he was young he was volunteering at a rescue boat in the Thames. That was, before RNLI set up the stations on River Thames. Now, he is a pensioner and he comes over to the club on Sundays and he drives one of the safety boats. On the other safety boat was Steve with Tom. Tom managed to take some really nice photos.

Pete didn’t do very well in the firefly. The sail was too old and it had stretched so much, that it had a huge bag, and there was no way to de-power it. So when the wind picked up in the afternoon, they were struggling to keep the boat flat. In the morning race, Pete fell off the boat. His excuse was that in the Laser the toestraps ale always there, but in the Firelfy he couldn’t find them, so he fell off the back of the boat. Unfortunately I missed that scene.

Next Sunday is the RS200 Open, so no sailing again, but most probably we will race on Saturday. I will have to stay away from that pontoon which only for GP14s, otherwise some people might start biting.