Bob wrote:
Well the Grafham entertainment group were a bit depleted today. Never mind - the chairman (Frank) was there and he was determined not to disappoint us, dispite the fact that the wind was not so challenging as recent times. Now the trouble is with Frank is he is very impressionable and eagerly looks for role models. He also is very keen to impress Erling Holmberg's dancing troup (team Shanklin). Anyway, he must have heard about the neat trick that Erling's left hand man twice removed (Paul Tanner) accomplished at Gurnard one day. Paul managed to mount one of Gurnards large inflatable buoys and got it stuck between his hulls (much to the amusement of the guys from the "dark side" of the IoW(Gurnard). Now in such a circumstance the boat just wants to go forwards but to unmount the buoy, backwards is the only way to go. Suffice it to say that the unmounting is not a quick or easily achieved manoeuvre. Well our hero (Frank) was able to PRECISELY REPLICATE Paul's party piece in the first race at Grafham today AND he was no better than Paul at going backwards,either! Erling would have been proud of him!!!!
The Grafham sailors had a little chuckle.
Happy days!
PS We welcomed new members Andrew Cullum & John Lyon who were doing their first race at Grafham today in Sprint 15s. Andrew signed up for a demo at Alexandra Palace Dinghy Show, has had a demo, bought a boat & has now completed his first 2 races. John has had his boat a few weeks longer.
