WISC 2011

Dear WISCer and X-WISCers,

Folie has competed in the 3 remaining races Feb, March and April. Sadly we have a much depleted crew with Mel, Halina and Karen as stayers. Angela has defected to Carvallo which was ,at last count , winning. Els and Jill sailed with Allegrese until injury and other committements took them out. Kate is sailing for pleasure only and Jenny is renovating. The Feb and March races were in light winds but the most recent 2 races were in lovely 15-20kt winds and with our new sails reefed we did OK. No one noticed that Dovie was our foredeckie...

Terrible Inspiritation

Check out the Tour D'Afrique website.

WISC 3

Wisc 2 was such a light day with only one race completed by the Folies and with the swimming and yummy lunch the highlight of the day that I completely forgot to blog.

WISC 3 held on December 6th was again a lovely day but had far too little wind for Folie to shine. The first race was shortened thankfully as it was painfully slow. The plan to start in clear air partly worked but we were a little late to the line. The down wind leg saw the crew triumph over the bastard pole with no injury but the wind shifts were such that the pole was unneccesary half way down the leg. The highlight was our token man, Dave's, cups of tea ("green tea with milk Angela?") and Mels banana cake. Also we did NOT finish last!

The second race was even slower and rounding the windward mark ( a feat that took 2 goes) Capt Sue thought that we had only 1.5 hrs ( in fact it was 2)so may as well put up the spinnaker for practice...maybe a little help from David with untangling..but essentially done beautifully thanks to a great crew effort we sauntered to towards Tarni, gybed the spinnaker for fun . We were surprised to see Tarni still there. Simon helpfully suggested we finish over the line which we'd missed and that we had 8 mins to go. The wind came up for the first time , the spinnaker came down and we whizzed through the line with 40 secs to spare.

WISC 1 OCtober 11th

Well as you can see there was just enough wind to get us over the start line and taking a right turn we managed to get just enough wind to get us to the windward mark (after being lapped by the fast boats. This was a little embarassing as the leg was quite short. As we rounded the mark , a shortened course flag was put up and some tooting done by the RIB near the windward mark. I , the skipper , thought that he race had been shortened so that we were on the home run. The pole (the bastard) was safely up and we drifted with the current over the finish line....only to realise that we were supposed to beat back to the windward mark. We were not the only confused boat that was scored DNF with a 24 . The 2nd race was cancelled due to lack of wind....but the emails went flying around and a protest was lodged by someone who knows the rules better that I , and the results amended so that the slow boats who didn't complete the course have hald a chance in the series. RBYC is also holding a rules night....AGAIN! Next race is on November 8th. I must say the highlight was the lovely lunch we enjoyed on the way back to Brighton.

Saturday Racing

This is the Wednesday Crew , Sue Burke, Gil Whitington, Angela Woodman and myself behind the lens. We are very pleased with ourselves because we have managed to put up the pole (otherwise known as "the bastard") on the second downwind leg. The first downwind leg was ....a learning experience. Today was a delightful sunny day with a steady 10kts fron the south. We are not going to consult the website for the results.

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