Friday 20 January 2012

Bloody Mary Video

James Phare was wielding my camcorder for the Bloody Mary so I've thrown together this montage of footage throughout the race. Having just moved house I have no broadband at home so only just found somewhere to upload it!



Monday 16 January 2012

Minor Bristol Mothing

Finally starting to get some momentum up at Cheddar after sailing on New Years day and this past Sunday.

The less said about New Years the better, Tom, Alan and I all took to the water in some very marginal foiling conditions that saw us only really foiling downwind when we got lucky in the puffs. It was a pursuit race and I only made up one of the two laps the rest of the fleet had on me so managed to finish dead last, after both Alan and Tom called it quits early.

Yesterday Tom, Leo and I took to the skies for the club racing. I launched just before the start in the biggest wind of the day peaking with 20+ knot gusts and I managed 28 knots in the first minute on the way to the start! I led Tom astray sailing the wrong course so we just settled on doing some windward/leewards and trying to remember how to sail again and getting the tacking back up to scratch.
 Leo was out for his second sail of the year after a long period out of the boat and it was good to see him blasting around and reminding me just how much fun these boats are without taking them too seriously!

Martin was down collecting some bits from his boat for some pimping before he starts getting sailing again while Darren was out on Race duty, making it an almost full complement of Bristol Mothies and the most we've had down the club for ages. Everyone is keen and I think this year is going to be a bundle of fun.

I'm currently busy plotting my bid to regain my crown in the GB speed league as this Saturday is looking pretty bonkers down in Foiltown...


Monday 9 January 2012

That Bloody Race!

The 39th Bloody Mary took place on saturday and with sunshine and a gusty12+ knot breeze it was finally looking like Mothy weather!

And it was, with Jason Belben, Mike Lennon, Ricky Tagg and Pete Barton taking the top 4 spots overall in the 250+ boat fleet! Mike and Jason in particular had a real ding-dong battle with place changing all the way round and Mike eventually missing out by overstanding the finish line and allowing Jason inside. Mike also gets the good sportsmanship award for shouting Jason back after he missed a spacer mark although I'm sure he's regretting that now!

1st Jason Belben
2nd Mike Lennon
3rd Ricky Tagg
4th Pete Barton
15th Mike Cooke
21st Tom Offer
30th Doug Pybus
47th Geoff Carveth
63rd Andrew Friend
68th Richard Westbury
107th Ben Paton
164th Neil Baker
221st Leigh Albrecht
229th Andrea Biagioni

Full results here
Fotoboat gallery here
SurftoTurf gallery here
Sportography gallery here

This one of me thanks to James Phare - will post more of his later...

I had a pretty good race once I got around the windward mark. Unfortunately the bit before that saw me dropping the mainsheet and falling in, then getting caught by a gust post tack and mining hard. By the time I got up and going again the leaders were already around the 1st leeward mark! Thankfully whenever I saw them next (going the other way around the course) they weren't pulling away so I know I was going well enough to have hung with them if I hadn't cocked up so badly!

In true Cooke fashion, I changed a load of stuff on the boat since I last sailed and this was my first test for my settings - the boat felt good, although I had run out of pushrod adjustment. I'm finally starting to pencil in some days sailing over the next couple of months after a hectic christmas period/housemove/trytosqeezeinsomeworktoo so hope the next couple of winter events go a bit smoother!