A Successful Weekend!!
As the first of the Fastnet Crews trickled in to Ocean Village on Friday evening, the Sailing Logic team were hard still hard at work- indeed Brian pointed out, from his vantage point in the RSYC bar, that we were scurrying around like, ‘demented ants’ on the pontoon!! It was definitely worth it though as the seven boats looked very impressive lined up in front of the yacht club with their Sailing Logic flags flying proudly.
Saturday morning began with an introduction to all the Sailing Logic Fastnet Teams by Philippe and Allie and a briefing of what to expect over the coming few months. The skippers and mates met their crews over a fantastic breakfast of bacon rolls and coffee, supplied by the yacht club, before heading down to their boats, for group photos in our new jackets.
It was a pretty breezy morning, even in the marina, but the sunshine was doing its best to break through, and after a full safety brief and run through of the sails and lines a lot of confused looking crews headed out for an afternoon’s training on the water!! It turned out to be a brilliant day on the water and all those confused looking faces were replaced with big grins by the end of the day, despite a baptism of fire into the training weekend, with 30knots of wind blowing through the Solent! One of the Reflex’s even managed to put a kite up and could be seen storming back from the Western Solent towards Southampton water. It also proved to be a great opportunity for most of the boats to get out their bright orange storm sails, which are used when it gets very windy!
Unfortunately for Puma Logic, their throttle cable broke, just as they were leaving the marina and with nothing they could do about it, ended up driving into a pontoon. Fortunately, they managed to miss all surrounding boats but this meant their weekend’s training was cut short as they headed back to Shamrock Quay to survey the damage.
This did nothing to stop the other crews renaming Puma, ‘Crash Logic’ for the evening and Allie even bought Philippe a copy of the RYA Day Skipper notes, so he could read up on his boat handling!!
By seven in the evening, all the crews had gathered in the Royal Southampton Yacht Club for dinner, awaiting the guest speaker: Allie then introduced Mike Golding, who certainly impressed us all (except Craig, who didn’t know who he was!!) It was great to be inspired by such a world class sailor, and reminded us all that the success of our campaigns will depend on putting in 100%, but that the sense of achievement at the end will be worth it!!
The Southampton Yacht Club did an amazing job of looking after us over the weekend and the meal on Saturday was delicious- a huge thank you to them.
Inevitably, with 73 people together, the evening spiralled towards the Frog and Frigate and about forty Sailing Logic crew (and one Sailing Logic Race Director) were allegedly dancing on tables until the early hours.
Needless to say there were a few sore heads on Sunday morning, but nothing that 25knots of wind and heavy rain out on the water wouldn’t sort out and the teams headed out early to make the most of our second day!!
We hope that everyone had a great weekend that met or exceeded your expectations. (Most of) the Sailing Logic skippers and mates had a fantastic weekend and are now thoroughly looking forward to the first race, to Eddystone Lighthouse and back, in three weeks time. We hope there will be some close racing between the Sailing Logic fleet and good results all round.
Lastly, we would also like to say thank you very much to Mike Golding for taking time out of his busy schedule and coming to say a few words for us.
RORC 'Sailing School Boat of the Year' 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012