Copy: John O'Brien
Pix: MA.
A clear blue sky, a 2 knot wind from the East, plenty of water and a temperature of 23 degrees at 09.00 greeted the initially six soon to become seven competitors to the 2024 Ancient Mariner event at Bath Rd on Wednesday 26th June.
John Galyer as PRO ably set about describing the first event, being a windward/leeward standard course, the order across the finish line was recorded by Sophie Hull who had been invited to act as ARO for the morning’s event.
Much crowding around the first mark meant that Sophie had her work cut out in identifying the infringers. The order of finish of the first race dictated the order for the following pursuit race, a nice 12kt had set in and vanished as soon as we started falling to 2 knots. Good humour as befitting the contestants remained throughout, just as well as the race seemed to take an age.
In between the first and second races, John and Sophie determined that some practice at penalty turns were needed - all performed with balletic skills, with the most 14 completed in two minutes.
In order for the boats to regain their composure tea time was called. In one particular case, marmalade sandwiches, specially flown in from Peru, provided one lucky competitor with energy for the the sailing backwards event. Absolutely no one did this at the time however, Malcolm demonstrated it very impressively although much later, which didn’t count.
Due to the misbehaving wind, the number of events were reduced allowing an earlier finish probably a wise move as temperatures approached 30° +
IN true style befitting that of ancient Mariners retirement to the balcony at Slipper for sustenance became the order of the day where the delightful Sophie (our attractive scorer for the day) was able to determine the winner allowing John to present Bob Jarvis as the IOM ANCIENT MARINER of 2024.
Many thanks to John Galyer, Sophie Hull and Chris Treagust for keeping control, scoring and mark laying in that order. Oh and rescuing John's Boat which in predictable tradition found its way aground on the far bank. Another beer for Chris.
A great day was had by all and next year we'll try to have the bar open for a tot of rum.