10^th November was an abolutely beautiful crisp, sunny Autumn day.  As usual at WOSC there were a couple of notable events.  This week there was one on the water and one off the water.

Richard and family turned up to do bar duty.  As soon as they arrived, they decided to set a crayfish trap in order that they could have some crustacean delicacies for dinner.  Richard grasped the tether, and with an enormous heave, launched the trap into the lake.  Unfortunately it has been some time since Richard was a Boy Scout and he was left holding the string, while the trap plopped into the lake, completely untethered.  As Richard did, we will come back to that later.

The other event was the launching of Les' new Wayfarer, complete with outboard bracket, cruising sails and beautiful, if enormous bow fairleads.

The first race showed that Les and Graham had good speed away from the line, but they were quickly overhauled by Sue and Bettiane (Can someone please tell me whether this is how to spell her name?  I got the spelling from the race results, but I'll bet that it should be Bettina), Steve and Carol, and threatened by George and Lucia.  Not the best start, I think that you would agree.

The second race was a bit of a disaster for our intrepid duo.  Trying to be up there at the start, they realised they were early and turned to try a port tack start.  In doing so the impeded Sue who insisted that Les and Graham do penalty turns.  Les did a full turn, and thinking that this was enough, set off after the rest of the fleet.   The remainder of the race saw no significant improvement and it was no surprise to many that our intrepid duo retired.

Those of you who have read this far may be wondering what happened to Richard and his crayfish trap.  After serving a couple of J2Os and one beer, which was in fact bought by Richard's wife, they returned to the car park to look for the trap.  At this point Richard made sure that I knew that he bought the beer which his wife drank.

Nevertheless the crayfish trap required to be retrieved.

Richard manfully stripped to his rather fetching and fashionable, purple with white polka dots underwear and strode into the lake to retrieve the trap.

The trap duly recovered, Richard shouted that he had caught a fish.  Removing something from the trap, it proved to be a sea bass in a plastic bag, which had recently been removed from the freezer, as it was still rock solid.  Well, at least it can go back into the freezer to be used again.

Once Richard had dressed we conducted a short knot tying lesson.  That is, a short lesson on tying knots, rather than a lesson on how to tie short knots!

I hope that you like the pictures.

The 17^th of November followed the weather forecast perfectly.  It was a thoroughly miserable day with almost no wind and, although there was no rain as such, we all got fairly damp.

In the first race Les demonstrated that he had been reading his textbook, and in particular the chapter on starting.  He obviously understood that it is good to start in clean air.  That was emphasised in the book.  What Les had neglected to remember was that it is also a pretty good idea to be somewhere near the line for the start.  Giving the whole fleet a 3 minute start obviously gave Les the clean air he was looking for, but he was at somewhat of a disadvantage in having to catch the fleet.

During the race Tom arrived with yet another boat.  This time a new (to him) OK painted in tasteful matt grey with equally tasteful orange cockpit and foils.  The highlights of the new boat are, however the chrome transom and the wonderful built-in cup holders.  You will be able to see yourself as Tom powers off into the distance.  Ross was keen to point out that at this stage Tom was borrowing his new OK.

Tom showed exceptional speed round the course and gave a masterclass in roll tacking.  I thought that I had read somewhere about not being allowed to exit a tack faster than going into it.  Is that Rule 42?

Enjoy the pictures

The 15^th of December will be remembered by most for the turkey lunch and the excellent racing on a brisk overcast day.  Oliver may remember this day for other reasons, as he spent quite some time in the water during the first race.

Unfortunately, the majority of the action took place on the far bank, but your correspondent was lucky enough to capture some of it.  It might be argued that the picture above represented the main event.  I think that 4.9 for technical difficulty and 4.5 for artistic expression for Oliver's feat would be well deserved!

The remainder of the pictures are, I regret, somewhat more mundane.  It was not the best day on which to capture action in vivid colour.  Nevertheless, here they are.