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In London on the day of the Championship the wind was around a force five. At the Farmoor reservoir in Oxford it was force 6-8. Half the people who arrived to compete just turned straight round and went home again!
After rigging up the Alohas with our change down sails, Andrew Johnson and I went out for a test blast. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the start line of the first race, instead we were blown off the water and onto the dam, as was almost everybody else in our class and most of the raceboard class. The ones who made it were the REALLY good people such as Chris Lovelock and Nick Deverill.
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So it was back to the "beach" for a quick re-rig in time for the next race. By piling on the down haul on the Tush "103" it was possible to make it controllable and have a very high top end speed on the reaches, and I ended up out-reaching most of the race boards with the 7.5 square metre rigs, who were simply overpowered. Unfortunately, Andrew didn't have the right change down sail, so was hesitating about going out again.
The result of this was I won the next race by quite a long way, possibly because I was the only one in my class (Junior Aloha) to reach the finish line! The only other Aloha finisher was Graham Brewer, who won the Youth class. The third race was more interesting. The wind appeared to be dropping off so everyone rigged up their 6.5 metre sails, blasted off on the upwind leg leaving me behind because I`d opted to stay with my 5.5 metre "103" as I wasn`t convinced about the wind dropping off. I was right. By the time of the first downwind leg the wind had picked up again so everyone apart from me was blown off the water again, with Jessica Ash just managing to hold on and finish behind me.
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In the last race the wind really did drop off and as a result everyone apart from Graham Brewer was wallowing. No-one wanted to re-live the last race so every one else was on 5.5 metre rigs.
I came third with James Backer second. Jessica Ash, who is pretty light, one of the reasons she wasn`t on the pace in the higher winds, was in her element. She took the lead and won by a good two and a half legs.
The overall result of all this high-wind masochism was that I was first, with James Backer second and Jess Ash third in the Junior class. The clear winner of the Youth class was Graham Brewer. It was hard work, but after I got my rig sorted out I had a great time.
p.s. Thanks to Dad for bearing with me, helping with the rigging and encouraging me to get back out there when I really had decided to give up.
