This weekend can only be described as one of the more eventful Sunsail weekends.
After a 5am start to get to the boat for 7:45am, the day looked like it would turn into a good one. We were blessed with blue skies and a fairly consistent 20kn breeze, gusting 30+knots.
The morning started with a pre-race bottle of port
Which Timmy unfortunately spilled and was awarded with the first Shoe of the day, schoolboy error:
[KGVID poster=”http://legendarydude.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140228-123402_thumb1744.jpg” width=”568″ height=”320″]http://legendarydude.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140228-123402.mov[/KGVID]Race one saw a bullet, race two an OCS meant a fourth place, race three a second and race four another bullet, crowning Team Simply the Chiller Series champions.
The excitement was just kicking off where on the way in I managed to get hit on the tooth (yes tooth, not face!) by the backstay block, loosing half my front tooth:
And Steve managed to jam his fingers between a gybing main sheet. To be fair to him, he didn’t make a sound, no whinging or crying, just a portion of MTFU and with that he cracked on into the evening’s entertainments. Good lad.
Following a good old fashioned sing along to “The Foo Fighters” nudge nudge wink wink Rob, we headed out to Pizza Express for a bite to eat. Not long into the meal we lost Rob as he had seen away one too many carafes and made his way into the kitchens. Needless to say the manager was highly impressed with his efforts and awarded him with a pint of water and a request that we all leave. Noted.
What happened next, nobody is too sure of. Hazy memories include:
Rob not being allowed into Tiger Tiger
Ian buying an entire bottle of Jaeger from the Bar
Us all feeling like OAPs in the club
Me going to get Rob from the boat only to find him on his knees with his face buried in his own bag. I left him. On the way back I bumped into Steve who had lost everyone at which point we tried to get back in the Palace of Dreams. This can only be described as an epic fail.
Thanks to Page booking our hotel in BRIGHTON, it took me over an hour to walk the 1km back finding myself on the Southsea Hovercraft beach at one point.
Once back at the hotel The Page soon returned only to be jealous of my packet of crisps and promptly ordered £30 of room service, money well spent:
During the evening the ongoing Page’s Car jape continued with Rob “relocating” it to another car park in Portsmouth. Good effort:
[KGVID width=”405″ height=”720″]http://legendarydude.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/20140228-135202.mov[/KGVID]Day two commenced with some fairly significant hangovers and an hour long postponement (thank god). After a couple more ours waiting, the race officer declared the that the conditions had stabilised and racing would commence within 30mins. I’m not sure what wind indicator he was looking at, but it only looked like getting stronger on our chart with a steady 30kn gusting 46kn. Breeze on.
Team Simply were not quite working at maximum efficiency on Sunday which led to an interesting incident involving Jamie H’s boat, our boat and SE Ryde Middle Cardinal (and a subsequent Navigation Warning issued by the coast guard).
Boring boat handling video:
