Welcome to the two groups of Re-Active8 participants.
Unfortunately Tuesday turned out a bit too windy to get out on the water, the land drills were useful though.
Thursday we managed to dunk a couple of you in the lake ! Happily you still seem keen to carry on.
This Tuesday 14th June. Happily the forecast is for light winds (at last!)
Tuesday session went very well, nice light breeze with the occasional stronger gust to get the boats going. Everone did very well for their first session on the water. Unfortunately everyone who went out with an instructor on board ended up falling in ! Oh well at least that’s capsize recovery out of the way.
Thursday 16th June.
After a not very promising start, with a very squally rain shower blowing through, we managed to get on the water for a good session. Everyone is coming along nicely.
Tuesday 21st June.
Things didn’t look too promising as everyone arrived with gusts approaching 30mph sweeping across the lake. Fortunately those are just the sort of conditions that Dart 15′s thrive on ! So after a brief theory session (always more theory to cover) it was out for joy rides on the Darts with Karl and Mark. Young Harry is always up for a blast when the wind picks up as well so he took crew out on one of the Fevas. While the remainder of the group did shore drills. We swapped around through the session and managed to get everyone out on the lake. I think the performance of the Darts was a bit of an eye opener, managing as they do, to get from one end of the lake to the other considerably quicker than the rescue dory can manage! So,fingers crossed for a nice sunny force 3 next week.
Thursday 23rd June
Arrived at the lake at 1pm to be greeted by far windier conditions than Tuesday. They even had the cat sailors furrowing their brows! Conditions continued in the same manner through to 3pm when I took the decision to postpone this evenings session. True to form Murphy’s third law of sailing kicked in “If you cancel an event the wind will start to drop, if you don’t it will continue to rise” By 4.30pm the wind started to ease and just to rub salt in, the sun put in an appearance around 5! As I sit here writing this (10pm) there is almost a dead calm. Oh well, one more session added to the end. On the up side the forecast for next week is looking much better.
Tuesday 28th June
Hmm, despite my optimistic prediction, things weren’t looking too promising at 3 pm with thunder around the lake and lashing rain! Happily by 4pm things had vastly improved and we had almost ideal conditions. (a bit of sun would have been nice). We managed to convince Mick and Chris to try single handers and continued to pressurise Brian in to giving it a go. We may have managed it as he sort of promised to try it next week. Paul and Tony persisted in the Fevas with Paul showing that once you have learnt it is something that comes back with a bit of practice. Tony is getting to grips with the Lightning and I am sure we will convince him to convert to centre main technique in the end! By the end of the session everyone was sailing upwind and techniques are improving all round. The only people to capsize this week were (once again) those with an instructor in the boat (sorry Brian and Alison). Note to self – STOP putting instructors in with people!
Tuesday 5th July
Once Tony had his customary early capsize completed (his technique for getting back in is improving each time) the whole group moved on to practice upwind sailing. Everyone made it to the upwind flag, some with more efficiency than others! However everyone made it which is a great step forward. Chris was starting to regret having her sail so reefed when she got stuck in the wind shadow in the corner of the lake. Half way through the sessions and we are just where I would expect us to be. Next week we will move on to downwind sailing then hope to be putting it all together in the final evenings.
Tuesday 19th July
Light winds for a change greeted us on arrival, something of a novelty. It did however mean that we were able to move on to gybing and it also meant that for once Tony didn’t occupy us with his customary early capsize! Unfortunately soon after the session started the light winds turned in to very light winds then to nothing. Sailing in very light winds is something we hadn’t had the chance to cover. It involves a lot of patience and a lot of sitting very still, something that everyone got the hang of very quickly! happily towards the end of the session the wind picked up a bit and we were able to put the theory in to practice. Some very good gybes and one or two fairly erratic ones. Looking good for the last session next week. Everyone should be sailing on all points of sail, tacking and gybing. Not bad for 6 weeks! Well done to you all.
