And the thunder rolled...

Another Saturday on the water, and what a day it was. There was only the lightest of breezes in the morning, but around lunchtime things really picked up. I have no idea what the wind speed was, only that it was getting up to very challenging levels.

So the race started, we took off down the river tacking back and forth like madmen and madwomen. With the force of the wind, many tacks included a generous portion of swim time. All through the first lap the wind continued to increase ahead of the coming thunderstorm. Things did go quite well on the first lap, until a gybe around a mark that was intended to turn into a run. The actual result was a spectacular capsize - I was ejected from the boat, rather than sort of just leaking into the river. At this point I had been catching up some other boats. They righted their vessels much more quickly than I did, so that was the end of that charge.

However, while capsized I did make significant progress along the course: The sail was sticking up perpendicular to the water, so a few hundred metres of course was completed while capsized. Of course, pointing the boat into the wind so that I could actually right it, get in, and get underway took a long time...

Eventually, back underway running before a strong breeze, planing in front a closing RiverCat ferry, things started looking up again, and thanks to my relative light weight, I started catching up on the downwind leg. The following reach worked really well, I actually passed another boat (okay, Jeff was making some emergency adjustments to his rudder). Then it's back to working into the wind... covered half the upwind leg, and then capped it, righted it, capped it, righted it, capped it... all the while not making any headway at all. I think this marks the point where the conditions exceeded my modest sailing ability.

With the see-saw nature of this adventure, my rudder pin was dislodged and the rudder fell off. Hurray! Caught it before it sank to the gluey bottom of the river.

Once I had re-attached the rudder, caught my breath, I started applying the principle of not going completely head-to-wind, and limped around the course, the 'encouragement' of the race leaders lapping me ringing in my ears, exhaustion and refrigeration taking their toll.

Halfway through my second lap the race was abandoned 'cos of that thunderstorm. We may be mad enough to sail in strong winds and driving rain, but when there's lightning and thunder, sitting in the middle of a wide expanse of water with a little bitty aluminum mast sticking up doesn't seem the wisest thing to do.

And for the defining moment of brilliance, I had left my backpack under a tree... which seems to be in the path of the park's primary drainage routes, and hence everything, including my phone, drowned.

I must be mad to love this so much.