Sailing, sailing and more sailing

Well, if you thought we were keen on sailing before, that was before the kids got interested! Now, life seems to revolve around the river! In a large part, it is due to this:

But apart from that, there has just been a great deal going on. Two weekends with a total of five days spent at the club! The first was the end of course day - the Saturday when we descend on the club to celebrate the end of the Level 1 course. It was quite windy, which resulted in the novices sailing Visions that looked like this after reefing:

Much silliness! The kids had a bit of a joyride and then Ian and Dorothea the Elder put the GP through it's paces.

And other people came out too and provided entertainment.

Day two of the weekend was much quieter and was the ideal day for the launch of Sea Swallow.

There was much excitement!

Day three was actually a school day, but Nathaniel asked very nicely if we could go sailing after school. So we did and he was happy!

The next weekend saw the official opening of the new club changing rooms. No longer do you have to share a toilet with an array of amazing spiders, and there is even hot water! We had two of the Yorkshire Rows team (four York women who rowed across the Altantic, setting all sorts of records), to cut the ribbon, and then there was lots of cake and a demonstration from the York Resue Boat. Nathaniel learnt how to throw a life line and we all enjoyed trying to rescue people from the water.

The next day was simply a pleasant day! Not much wind, so I sailed the GP single-handed, and thanks to a fortuitous gust at the start line, won the race. Ian manfully attended to a smaller craft. The crew of two sailed, and he was ballast and tutor!

Today we were OD and there was no wind at all (the BBC had 3mph veering from NWN to SSE over three hours). There was not much interest from the membership in sailing, even though we had two very willing officers of the day.

So we got in a canoe and explored the underside of the trees, finding interesting routes through the branches all the way down to Bishopthorpe where we were able to find four very fine ice creams.

And now Ulswater beckons........