in the afternoon i sailed on Stray cat with John Russ on a stryder cat cruiser.
In total i did not get off the water until 1730 in the evening there was fireworks as the start of carnival week
Sunday i had a new crew Lauren who had only just completed her adult training course and had never been on a cat before. after everyone was taking the mickey out of us on the beach while i was telling her about the basics of the boat.
the wind was picking up all the time and the waves were choppy, a good force four to five. I messed the start up by being to far away from the start !!. we went across the line a few minutes late, starboard tack was very heavy due to the waves and i didn't make much progress at all, after rounding Mark one the reach was no better, but downwind to 3 was better. (a triangle course)
Each tack for the committee boat was messed up and i had to reverse the rudders every time. I really struggle in waves and wind to do this, however toward the end of the race we were sailing much better, a good reach from 1 to 2 was fantastic and Lauren commented on it after.
considering the conditions and with a novice crew we did really well. Lauren did exceptionally well for a first time on a DART 18 , with more training for the helm im sure Lauren will do very well in crewing on a dart.
as far as i could tell she didnt make any mistakes at all which is very good indeed. trapezing will be the next bit to master and then real progress can be made.
