Saturday
Every Easter, Parkstone Yacht Club’s Race Management Team briefly loses its collective mind and begins stockpiling the Cadbury Creme Egg for the sailing adventures of the brave sailors venturing in to chilly and windy conditions.  On land, this is a vile confection. The shell tastes like sweetened candle wax, while the filling resembles toothpaste developed by Willy Wonka during a nervous breakdown and sickly enough to stun a hefty whale.  And yet, place that same revolting oval aboard a cold, wet Flying 15 in April, and it becomes culinary perfection.

These, I imagine, were the thoughts of Dave Wells as he was tossed overboard.  Though blustery, the gybe had started well enough, but mid-way through Dave realised he’d made a somewhat catastrophic error by being on the wrong side of the boom and was ejected from the boat in a spectacular arc worthy of Olympic judging.  Being a cold water swimmer he drifted cheerily in the harbour until rescue arrived in the form of Steve Randle, whose recovery technique demonstrated admirable seamanship.  Good seamanship also demonstrated by Mike Clapp who brought the ejecting vessel under control and safely home.  I don’t remember much about the race as it was so long ago except everyone suffered ice cream headaches after the fast and furious 2 sail reach to Chris Somner.  Rich won, no mistakes, smooth sailing and a lead that kept growing.
 
Sunday
After three hours of horizontal rain, frozen fingers, and a race committee apparently sponsored by sadism, nothing lifts a sailor’s spirits quite like the arrival of caramel flapjack and hot chocolate. The flapjack, dense enough to qualify as ballast, and hot chocolate, steaming heroically in a paper cup, too hot to hold with numb hands.

These I imagine were the thoughts of Richard Ledger as he was tossed overboard.  A reverse flick flack that Simone Biles would have envied…hands grasping hopelessly for a mainsheet that had long since gone elsewhere, giving poor Richard no hope of anchorage as the roiled waters rushed to topple him.  Best of all it is all on video.

Alan is a hero.  Watching the video to see him calmly drop the spinnaker and sailing round to collect Richard is a training masterclass - well done.

I don’t remember much about the 2 races as it was so long ago. Rich won both races for the same reasons as above. A well-deserved winner of the series.

I apologise for the tardy nature of this report, I will do better in the future and attempt to better recall the actual racing events!