Sunday 11th April 2010 - Summer Series Race 2

On Sunday 11th April, we had a great sailing day with a delayed start but eventually got away with 7 boats on the river - 2 Enterprises, 1 Wayfarer, 3 Lasers and a Supernova.

Jerome capsized (totally turtle) at one stage, but between him and his son they got Gill back upright really quickly without any help, which is quite a feat in fast water and gusty winds. He also got the spinnaker up which looked great and gave him a huge boost on the river.

Joseph in his Supernova took to hugging the bank close to the wetland centre and capsized once.

Dan was "making love" to the trees on more than one occasion, close to the Wetland Centre and capsized 2 or 3 times.

Olga capsized twice and Renato only once - to my knowledge!

Jeremy and Joe both in Enterprises, demonstrated (to their Brazilian crews) how to sail a dinghy without capsizing. Soon the Brazilians will be demonstrating to us how to play football in South Africa...

Anyway the results for race 1 were

Renato First
Jeremy Second
Joe Third

Kate was assistant race officer which she ran single handed from the race office and did very well especially as she'd never done it before. And makes a great cuppa ;-)

I carried out my officer of the day duties whilst manning the rescue boat with Ross, as our Safety Boat crew hadn't received the schedule.

The day turned out to be quite gusty and although we had to assist our boats quite often, I'm sure everybody had a great sail. We also helped in rescuing 2 young rowers and returned them to their rowing club. Ranelagh lost it's second safety boat that disappeared and they eventually found them broken down near Hammersmith Bridge and had to tow them home.

All in all - an eventful day in the rescue boat.

Steve Barnes