The Minisail and CVRDA Nationals 2013 event was near Cambridge in a town named Huntingdon.
We were warmly welcomed by Vanessa making us feel right at home. Soon after familiar faces joined us(and more familiar faces but I couldn’t remember the name, sorry Roger).
I was the last with a Minisail to arrive at the venue and once 9000 was rolled in eight Minisails were there.
9000 went into the water for the first time and she did well. After a first afternoon of sailing I was glad to find out she hadn’t a drop of water inside – plenty of air instead, by releasing the drain plug it sounded like a big sigh of relief coming out of an air mattress.
After 30 minutes of discovering the pond (and the boat in my case) Rupert Whelan and me (Rupert in his wooden Sprite) started chasing each other to see how 9000 would perform. We kept within reach and decided to swap boats on the water. Again no difference in speed. A great difference in comfort however! How happy I was to put my feet into Rupert’s foot-well at last.
The following days were a combination of socializing and racing. The racing course changed shape every day and after the first day I got used to the system used; We needed to follow the fixed color scheme red, blue, orange, yellow, pink, green etc. A simple but very effective way to set out a course, I have raced a (boring) triangular pattern for years at my club and the short-legged racing tracks at the Hunt were a pleasing discovery.
My college friend Frans whom I learned sailing from came along. Just for being there and sniffing the atmosphere. It turned out after three days he had been in more boats as any of us. That he is a keen sailor proves the third position he was in after the start of the first race on Saturday, but then he had to abandon since the helm went with is foot through the hull.
Despite Frans having sailed about anything with a sail on it he was (critical in a positive way) positive about our Minisails. My bet is he’s going to join us next year again, and will be there at Belgian gatherings (Mind he lives and sails in Wormerveer near Amsterdam).
Everything that weekend was being very well taken care of by the organizing club (huge understatment, it was memorable),thank you again Nessa and team.
All pictures below.
and some more from Paul Rogers here
Building a wooden Minisail 