Rutland Regatta Recap (Because I Absolutely Adore Alliteration)

I slept 11 hours or so last night.  And another hour or so this afternoon.  I only got up after that nap because I had to otherwise I'd probably still be in bed now.

Yup, pretty exhausted.

Three twelve hour+ days in three days will do that to a girl it seems!

The regatta was in no way what I expected.  It was a lot more hardcore and serious than I had anticipated but it was very very fun.  The team which are going off to Beijing for the paralympics were there competing (and won their fleet).  Someone else was a runner up for the paralympic team and had to fly off somewhere, maybe Sweden?, before the prize giving.  The wind was scarily high yesterday and  I sat out as did many people.  But plenty didn't and someone even fell out of a boat in the middle of the pursuit race, got back in and kept going.   And a Challenger (which is what I sail) capsized yesterday for only the third time in it's entire history.  I talked to the person whose boat it was after and he was looking forward to getting out again as soon as the boat could be fixed.

Yeah, hardcore stuff to be had at Rutland Water this weekend and there were me and Dad thinking we'd sling some stuff in the back of the car and have a fun, relaxing sailing weekend. In fact when Mum heard all of

Fun?  Yes.  Relaxing?  No way.  Non Stop?  Yes.

I sailed twice out of the four times the fleets went out.  And both times was out for a couple of hours or more - longer than I've ever sailed in one go before.  Also went out in more wind then I've ever been out in before.  Pam said if we'd have been at home she'd probably have stopped me going out in that which makes a lot of sense but that said even though it scared me a bit I was glad I went out in it.

It was raining on Saturday morning in that wind and we were going so fast that water was splashing up and over the sides.  At times it was going over my head and so despite my wet coat and waterproof trousers I was soaked to the skin and literally had to strip every single item of clothing off and put dry on after.  The water was warm but after a couple of hours of that I was pretty cold so I retired from the race and into the warmth of the wet bar and a plate of chips for lunch.  Every time the water would splash up over me I would cry out in shock and then crack up laughing.  As Pam who was sailing as my buddy put it the speed and the healing over scared me a little (a lot at times) but I did really enjoy it.

What else?  Someone came up to me on Friday asked if I was Emma and when I said yes introduced themselves and told me they read my blog.  I'd known from a comment left last week that one of the organisers had read it but still that was a pretty cool moment.

There was a lot of laughter this weekend which is always a good thing.  The best (funniest) moment was probably hearing that Pam had sent someone off to look for Arthur having told them that "you'll know him, he looks like Captain Birdseye".  He wasn't very happy about that I think but the rest of us were very amused and it stuck.

In short, I was suprised by a lot of what I saw and I was scared or overwhelmed at times but I learnt a lot and had so. much. fun.

Photos by next weekend, probably not any sooner.  But maybe.  Or maybe not.