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28 July 2006
Fast Cat News
New member
I guess it is time to welcome Pete Hannon to the club, and specifically to the Fast Cat fleet. He is buying Adrian's half share of Animal and plans to take the beast out regularly. If you've not met Pete yet, fear not - he is a match for it. He claims to be a trim 17 stone and says his brother is the big one. Look out Animal!! Pete is a returning sailor with dinghy experience but already learning the dark art of fast cat sailing. He's clearly a determined fellow, having already changed his shift pattern to a five day week, 'to spend more time with his family' by which I think he means his brother, on Animal. His wife (Ruth) and daughters are also keen to have a go. They come in somewhat smaller packages and might well appear on the crew list soon and will be of special interest to light wind sailors.
Small Fast Cat Anyone?
Graham and Nigel took Animal out last weekend and were probably as surprised as anyone to find themselves very much in touch with the fleet at the windward mark - I think the penny has dropped that they need a bigger boat to be competitive, and when they have a bigger boat they will be competitive. So if you know of anyone who's looking for a smaller twin trapeze fast cat, tell Graham!
Sailing Saturday
Pete and I, with Nigel and son, will be sailing on Saturday 29th. We'd like company, so please 'come on down' if you can. HT is at 14:40, so I guess we'll be sailing from 12:40ish. No rescue cover is provided, so take care, & bring a radio or phone.
Race Officer this Sunday
I will be RO on Sunday, so I will be doing my best to make life interesting for the fast cats, as well as everyone else of course. Let me know if you'd like reaching or windward leeward and we'll try to make it work for you. Mark and Kate have packed their boat for the Anglesey Offshore race next weekend, so Kate will be helping me while Mark makes some sandwiches...
Spitfires Awaiting Action
Spitfire Europeans
If anyone is interested, Jonathan and I did the Spitfire Europeans last week and came 16/17. We were expecting better, until we realised who else was in the fleet. Let's put it this way - Yves Loday (Spitfire designer and Olympic Gold medalist) managed 6th and Reg White (Spitfire designer and builder and Olympic Gold medalist) finished 10th. I thought there were 7 club sailors including us who could have our own competition - until we later found out one of the teams were double Hobie 16 National Champs (11th in this event), another is onto his third new Spitfire, and so on. Which is all to say a tough fleet. We're happy that we were not disgraced - we finished on the same leg as the winners, weren't timed out at all and only capsized once (when I tried double trapezing downwind with the kite up on the last leg of the last race with four boats behind me (including Yves Loday after a capsize of his own!) and two ahead... - result: discovery that the practical application of this technique is somewhere in the range of a F3-4 whereas winds at the time were a good F5, as proven by what was announced over the radio as a spectacular pitchpole with both Jonathan and me landing in front of the boat. Cooool. It's a shame this learning exercise cost us 4 points and 15th overall). The final results show that the Club Seven did have their own competition: 27 points separated 10th and 11th places. 27 points also covered 11th-17th. Within our results we got 2 x 12ths, and 4 x 13ths in nine races, so I am not sure how we ended up at 16, but that's sailing! Overall conclusion: More practice needed in time for the Nationals!
See you at the weekend
Simon
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