End of August already
27 Aug 2018 Out for a cruiser race today on August bank holiday with my friend Nick R as crew for the first time. He's an experienced sailor and club instructor so I was confident despite the conditions being a bit brisk. Force 4 from the West on a cool day with grey sky and a bit of swell running. Maybe gusting towards F5. We nearly set the reef in the main but in the end we went with full main and just unrolled 3/4 of the genoa. Seven boats were out for the race on a 1200 start time. We got a good clean start second over the line ahead of most of the fleet. Unusually instead of a hard beat to the first mark the race officer had set a course such that we were able to lay the first mark on one tack on a fine reach, and we remained ahead of the group for an enjoyable few minutes until they began to catch us up. We were clocking up to 7 knots. My friend Jonathan in his boat Reef Knot towards the back of the pack took this photo as we approached the first mark: From left to r...