Alistair Tyrrell

31 May 2014 A cruiser pursuit race today - we did one of those last year, it's where each boat starts at a different time according to handicap and in theory we race to a photo-finish all close together. Alan came with me, his first time in a cruiser though he's done time in the Wayfarers and I convinced him that Elsa was really an enlarged Wayfarer with a roof. Six boats went to sea and we were third away with our start time of 1314. About F2 to F3 wind so at least we were't drifitng around in the tide like the last couple of times. We crossed the start line only about 40 seconds late and set off south out towards the Omar mark. A long beat out to sea and it was apparent we weren't pointing as high as the others and we fell behind. We did take turns to helm and eat sandwiches so maybe we weren't concentrating enough! We were a bit 'that'll do' on the sail shape and we could have spent more time tweaking the genoa cars or something. At Omar we bo

18 May 2014 The club open day was yesterday and the idea was for new members to put some money into a pot then come out with an existing member on a cruiser race. Stuart and I turned up at 1200 and hung around looking to see if anyone was coming with us and just as we'd decided to go to sea anyway, and backed out of the berth, there was a shout and we were beckoned back to collect Helen. She was keen and ready to go though not much experience. Lovely sunny day today with wind forecast around F3 so conditions should have been perfect. Once we'd motored out against the strong incoming tide and then shut off the engine it was apparent that the wind was less than expected and there was quite a strong tidal current taking us in the wrong direction. A committee boat start sequence got going for 1330. Remembering previous races where we'd flapped about and been late off the start line, I re-started the motor and drove for the line until T - 5 minutes then shut it off again. H

4th May 2014 A couple of weeks ago the cruiser race was cancelled due to fairly unpleasant rainy weather that the crews seemed resistant to going out in. There was a cruiser race in the diary for today and I had crew lined up and ready - Stuart and Turner, who is 14 and seems to have several boats including a GP14 in the dinghy park and he's very keen. Lots of the boats are away this weekend on a cruise to Gosport or somewhere so we did wonder if any would show up for a race. Apart from us there was Nick in Free n Easy but nobody else. Today it was a smashing weather so we all said let's just go sailing anyway. At 1pm we backed out of the berth and Stuart hoisted the main while we were in the river and Turner helped get the fenders in. The engine has a new 'high thrust' prop and it did seem to push us against the tide a bit better, though we noticed the engine revs more slowly and at full power the helm is very stiff. Out at sea we found about F2 of southerly wind