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Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:52 pm
by Martin Searle
Martin Searle wrote:
Steven Tunnacliffe wrote:Martin

Very good, like the Icons but no explanations when I hover over icons on my Mac!

any Ideas :?:
Hi Steve,

Haven't the foggiest, I don't use Mac's being a Windows person, guess the Mac's browser software doesn't know about ALT tags. In IE it works fine! I'll try with various other browsers tomorrow, I have 4 on my latest version of the University of Kent Student PC which I'm spending most of my time doing at the moment.

Martin S.
Hi Steve,

Apple Safari, Opera and mozilla firefox would appear to don't display the explanations! They don't seem to understand ALT tags in the same way as IE does.

I've added in title tags which those other browser do seem to understand, bit brain dead if you ask me!

Martin S.

Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 7:38 pm
by Andrew Hannah
Ive got some fantastic news about the weather forecast. I'll come back to this in a moment.

First, the two-up entries that Charles wants more of. Earlier this year, Steve Sawford said he might enter two-up with his littl'un. His opposition would be quite formidable. But he hasn't entered yet. Perhaps he'll decide at the last moment and surprise us all!

Don't forget registrations will be on friday evening as well as on saturday morning of the championship.

And the weather forecast! Today is 15th July which is a very special day for weather forecasters. It is St Swithun's Day. Tradition has it that if it rains on St Swithun's Day, it will rain for forty days and forty nights.

I have to tell you that we've had no rain at Thorpe Bay today, and the sky is clear this evening. In 40 days time, the championship will be over. So it looks as if we are set for fine weather! What fantastic news, eh!

Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:29 pm
by Bob Carter
Hi ,
Yes there are quite a few people who never pre-enter. These include Steve Sawford, George Stephen, and many more.. I have had phone calls that more are in the pipeline and I generally give a day or twos grace on the cut off day. So my outlook on the eventual attendance is in the range of 57-63. I'll document it a bit better in a day or two in a mail note to Thorpe Bay so we can tidy up the details.
Cheers
Bob

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:32 pm
by Andrew Hannah
With the discount date now passed, I am pleased to see the entries are still creeping up. The latest Thorpe Bay entry is the young Kyle Stoneham who takes us to 17. We have more that could yet enter.

Today was not the sort of day to encourage the hesitant to enter. But I was at it, just the same! It was blowing a force 6. Twice at the bear-off, I plunged both bows in. I thought I was going for a swim but amazingly, the bows popped up. I must have looked perfectly ridiculous with both rudders stuck up, in the air.

There is a notice on our club notice board, "Wanted, Sprint 15". Quite so.

Saturday!

Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 10:04 pm
by Martin Searle
Hi Andrew,

Well I got my boat back from Steve Sawford last night and put it together this morning. We then went for a sail in winds that were touching 38mph+ on the water! Boat felt great, lots of speed, tracked wonderfully and unlike yourself I did bury the bows in lots of times on the run and did suffer a pitchpole to record my first capsize in about 5 years!

Strangely it was my first experience of a proper pitchpole with oodles of speed, I've only done one other but that was at a much lower speed, so it happened all way too fast for me to figure out what actually happened but I think the sterns got kicked up by a wave which plunged the bows into the back of the wave in front and stopped me dead.

So I bent my tiller extension (we got it bent back on shore) since I held onto it and also fell onto it later on, got my foot stuck in the toestrap and when I released it I fell into the sail but I don't think I broke any battens. Then when I retrieved my righting line from the beam the elastic snapped dunking me back in the water! I had to have some help to get the boat back up since I was about out of energy after a few goes at it. But thankfully no damage to the hulls was done :wink:

But it was a lot faster than before without the usual water ballast in the hulls which is promising for the nationals! I also have now redeployed the beam righting line by removing it and attaching it too the mast step and adding a few knots to it to help me pull myself out of the water.

Martin S.