Well folks Molly V entered her first race of the season as the clubs newest members we were keen to show off our new found sailing skills and impress the club.

To be honest it wasn’t a brilliant start in that skipper (Keith) and crew (Varrie) approached the start line with no idea of the course for the day, indeed they appeared to be approaching from the opposite direction from competitive George and the others. Skipper Keith tried to convince doubting Thomas, Varrie that it was a newbie tactic to throw the others. Plan A was simply to follow closely behind the others and nip through in the last 100 yds taking the wind from George’s sail to pip them at the post. Simplsk. 🙂
Alas, due to some internal bickering towards the first mark involving a lot of shouting and cussing, sitting and standing on the ropes…er sorry sheets, it was clear that Plan A wasn’t going to work. Luckily skipper Keith had A plan B and shouted at George as they passed in opposing direction seeking the race route, Skipper was sure he shouted back West 7, when in fact it was East 5 but reckoning he was the Dick Dasterdly of the club crewman Varrie got out the Bins and checked the notice in the club hut. After claiming it was dark she eventually took off the covers of the bins, both front and rear, and still claimed she couldn’t see anything, eventually it was realised she was looking at the top window of the club house…..eventually we got there….. All this before we reached the first marker which took forever
Not too much screaming from crewman Varrie in relation to the race itself beyond some early screams of “ITS GETTING TIPPY”… Some lessons to be learnt around getting tangled up in the sheets and crewmans bottom getting in the road of the tiller on all turns.
Amazingly time slowed, for us anyway, half way through the race we heard the official club horn sound several times, we thought there was an issue and perhaps a restart was in order, but no it appeared that the others had actually completed the course !!!.had we misread the course we had still miles to go……nope we were just as slow as a tortoise tipped on its back by an evil child…… Anyhow as the sun began to settle over the west, we glided home having completed the course and grateful to the race official for his patience…he clearly missed his dinner, or left to go have it and returned to see us in, a new club record for the slowest ever finish, but a finish nonetheless where others would have given up but not Molly V and let that be a lesson for anyone volunteering to be race official in the future, you better have time on your hands.
As painful as it is to say it was a Fourth on the day, not bad that’s nearly a podium place and on reflection a Personal Best….ha ha Molly V has led them into a false sense of security. Watch this space in the next race , Molly V will be back, hasta la vista baby.

Keith McDevitt