Autumn 2009

Too cold right now ? Cast your mind back to August when four boats from the Draycote fleet went to the World championships in La Rochelle. Martyn and Richard managed a respectable 6^th place whilst sailing what appears to have been the oldest boat there, Jez and Dave were 37^th. Mmmm, sunshine and warm water. Lovely.

Back here we rapidly got stuck into the Marriott Mug-bucket, the ever popular personal handicap event that anyone (except Pete) can win. Conditions were ideal and after six hard-fought races the results were announced as:

Jane & Pat 1^st
Eugene & Graham 2^nd
Helen & Paul 3^rd

So well done in particular to Jane and Pat (below) for having the tenacity to bag this one, new handicaps next year though….

Then 'ho' for the Fleet Championships, a 3 day affair held in a variety of different conditions. It quickly became clear that the trophy would be staying on Martyn's sideboard, so the rest of us competed for 2^nd place. Eighteen boats took part, final results were:

Martyn & Richard 5 pts 1^stMike and Paul 12 pts 2^nd
Peter Wood & Mike/James 12 pts 3^rd

The open meeting also occurred somewhere around the same time. The Saturday was fairly sensible, but halfway through Sunday morning it all went a bit mental and by the start of the last race there were only 5 boats willing to sail (out of a fleet of 46). There were some virtuoso displays of boat handling in winds up to 43 knots, so it was worth watching even if you didn't fancy being afloat. Martyn & Richard were 2^nd overall, Jez & Dave were an impressive 9^th, Colin & Karen got 2^nd place in the Silver fleet, Paul and Richard were 1^st Bronze fleet. So plenty of chocolates for the local boys and girls, and the rest of us enjoyed watching the carnage and making comments like 'Ooooh nasty", "I knew that was going to happen", "He didn't want to do that", etc. Great fun.


	By the time you read this we will have had the Christmas prizegiving meal bash, which was great (it always is), and will be well and truly stuck into the two winter series which run from November to March. If you pick your days carefully and invest in a decent drysuit, you can have a great time sailing in the winter. Bring it on !