Ladies Helm

We always feel a bit of a cheat doing a ladies helm race, as Alison is our main racing master anyway. If we can enter, I think Hugo and Toby should be able to as well.

Not for the first time this week, Alison misjudged the tide at the start, and the winds were so light that neither of us really knew what they were doing. So we were slow over the line, but still better than many, and got a good line to the first turning mark, over on the Bradwell shore.

It all went pear-shaped on the next one though. I had put all the buoys into the chart plotter and slipped an extra zero after the decimal point on one. This wouldn't have mattered if there wasn't a buoy of roughly the right aspect where the plotter suggested we needed to go, and if Simon, Sharon and Matilda on Cygnet of London hadn't seemed to be going for the same mark.

We did better after that and it was a self-timed finish at Osea so, unlike the Maldon Regatta, we didn't have to worry about being abandoned by the finish boat.

A little frustrating, but still a beautiful day, a beautiful river and the sort of sailing experience one just doesn't get any other way.