ISO Training Weekend - Draycote Water SC (20th & 21st April 2002)
What can I say except that those of you that need training - you know who you are and there's a lot of you, definately missed out. Four boats turned out, ranging from one pairing who very recently moved from a GP14 and never trapezed before, to another pair who have now been to 4 training sessions and back in December last year, received the best improved helm trophy at their local club King George SC (Nice one Bob and Mark).
The weekend was run by Pete Lindley and Jonny Backhouse - ISO 1013 'Team RWO' (done it got the sponsors in), with Boss Sailor Chris Gandy driving the coach boat and sorting out the club side of it all.
Saturday started with light winds but increased throughout the day to a good force 4. The usual rigging and tuning talk by Pete, all boats tuned, rigged and launched. With 6 races each lasting 25 minutes and consisting of at least 2 laps, there was no time to be bored or get cold. Then back to the shore for a de-brief with the dreaded camcorder. Several bo****ings, praises and laughter at the days antics, more questions answered to the full - hopefully.
The evenings meal / entertainment was, as planned, back at the Dun Cow Inn at Dunchurch. What were the overall top 3 films in the end guys? And would you believe it, they even stopped serving booze at 23:00 on the dot! Disasterous! No pub in Dunchurch would let us in for a lockin! All you police reading this, you never read this!
Sunday morning and very impressive it was to see everybody down at the club keen and eager rigging the boats ready for a promptish 10:00 start. Another talk, this time boat tweaks, and boat handling, then out onto the water for yet more racing, and 360º turns round the bouys. Very impressive how well the starts were improving by the attendees - from 20 secs late on the first start saturday, to 0.25 seconds late by the 4th and 5th race on Sunday! The good parts of the day for us in the coach boat were when Paddy and Julian were upside down in the water swimming round their boat, and later the same pair were the only ones the right way up hooning downwind with the kite up in the biggest gust of their lives so far, probably out of control - well the kite was fully set out one side of the boats and the main and jib were out the other, so I pressume they were out of control! Still, balls of steel, or was it just plane ignorance? I don't know, but they gybed and just for a split second, they were looking good - which as I keep on stressing "That's the main thing, even if your boat explodes into bits, so long as you looked good at the time...", then they capsized! They didn't believe that we enjoyed it on the coach boat as much as they did on 622, that was until they saw the film footage later and heard the laughter in the background!
With the wind picking up, we all retired to the club for another debrief with the camera, a beer and food.
All I can say to all who attended is that the improvement we saw from first thing Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon - just before the wind picked up, was brilliant. The previous session at King George and Stuart Watts - sorry mate but I feel I have to mention you, couldn't even tack the boat without falling over and getting in such a mess, when we turned up at Draycote and saw the difference what a bit of practice and guidance makes was amazing to say the least. Helming the boat with so much more control than the last time we saw you - brilliant!
Well done to ALL who attended, keep up the good work - it does get easier honest. Remember to set yourselves a goal every time you go out and work on it. Make sure you get to the next training session for the next level of your learning curve! Don't give up - well not yet anyway.
