a Weekend at "Wey-biza"
We only live an hour away from Castle Cove so I didn’t get any time off school for travelling :(
Saturday got off to an interesting start, we arrived at Castle Cove and realised the trailer keys were still at home. Dad and a lump hammer soon solved that problem!
Saturday’s weather conditions proved challenging with many of us using 4.2 sails in an attempt to stay upright in the 25 – 30 knots. Launching was a team effort with a couple of parents in wet suits to help us launch and head in the right direction, boats smashing against the rocks would not have made a good start to training. Swimming in the sea in January wasn’t quite what the dads had in mind when they set out with their sailors that morning!
As it was so gusty we focused on upwind and downwind sailing in heavy winds and waves. We spent about 3 and a half hours on the water doing our best to stay upright and learning how to sail up & down the waves and make good progress with the conditions in hand. I forgot my SeaBands which was a bad move. Time on the water proved fast and fun but very tiring, with lots of effort required to hike out and keep our boats flat.
The highlight of the Saturday’s theory session was when Duncan tried to demonstrate how to surf a wave by using a chair. Apologies to the sailing club for the chair that now needs mending. Photos made it straight onto FaceBook thanks to Lynn our other coach J
Sunday proved that weather conditions can offer a weekend of opposites, today the wind dropped right off to 5 – 11 knots and the sun was shining. Sails were swapped to 5.3’s and the 4 hours on the water were spent learning a lot about light wind sailing. My tacks and gybes improved as the day went on, reducing steering in my gybe being one of the aims for today.
Thank you to everyone at Castle Cove Sailing Club and Duncan and Lynn for a great weekend.
