The 28.8 Knot club

I don't think there is a 30 knot club in the UK yet, so I have here my highest bid. I also appear to have my rash vest on backwards.

Has anyone been faster over here? I know Rodders/Rashley and Offer have all put in 27 knots recently at least and Martin "Badger" Fear was the fastest in the UK for most of last year with a 26.9.

Anyway, Martin, Darren and I braved the ferocious land that is a crazy northerly at Axbridge today. With gusts coming out of the gorge like bullets it was a wild ride. It was actually surprisingly difficult to get any decent speed runs in as the gusts were so short that you tended to sail out the other side of them...

I went out about half an hour before Martin and had a couple of big runs, blowing away my previous 24.5 best with a 27.3 with the wand bouncing off the hull like a machine gun! I came in just as Martin was rigged up and he encouraged me back out and with gusts coming down on top of gusts I got pretty lucky and saw the GPS go over 28 briefly. It wasn't till I'd got back on land that I saw it had topped out at 28.8, with a 10 second run of 27.5. Martin also went faster than ever today, hitting 27.5 in his trusty pimped Bladerider - he also had far and away the best wipeout I've seen this year and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd beaten his own boats top speed on exit...

If I'm honest, there wasn't really much actual sailing to be done today - it was barely possible to get back upwind half the time as the change in windspeed and direction tended to have you underwater at a moments notice!

Still, looking forward to Poole this weekend and seeing if I can take some of this speed onto the racecourse...