Sunday was a lovely spring Easter Day with increasing amounts of green on the trees and a nest of five moorhen eggs on a deflated tender attached to Dorset Dunlin on the PLA mooring. Not much wind, but enough SW to give a short A-course from the City Barge down to the slip dock.
The river remains very full from recent upstream rain and all five crews got more than their feet wet rigging on the vanishing foreshore. They comprised Lev and David Kolobov in Porpoise (Enterprise); Ben Chappell in Envy (Laser); Frankie Skrzesewski in Tango (Laser); Tim Young (no ill-effects from last week’s dunking) in Ait Knots (Wanderer); and Nick Floyer (with brand-new sails) in flo (Gull).
Mary Brown (OOD) was able to start the race on time and all the fleet made good progress down to the slip dock against the flood tide. Lev was there first and stayed ahead for the whole race. He finished his first lap in just under 7 minutes, followed two minutes later by Nick and then Tim. On the second lap Nick was still second with Tim and then Ben close behind. Frankie decided that his time was best spent practicing tacking and observing the curious ways of the river, and retired from the race. Ben came storming through the fleet on the third lap to be second with Tim and then Nick close behind while Lev increased his lead with 5-minute laps. He finished 8 laps in just under the hour to be followed by Ben, then Tim on 7 laps and finally Nick on 6 laps.
The tide was high enough to almost sail into the boatyard at the end where Mary, having paddled down the footpath in wellies, offered tea and lemon drizzle cake. Lev and David were awarded the traditional Easter Egg by Commodore Tim, who had baby eggs for everyone else. Henry, in the safety boat, was grateful to have had a peaceful afternoon.
Next week it’s a C-course (Isleworth) starting at 11:30
