Sunday Series Race 2 - Girl Overboard!

The M to B kite leg didn't happen. The MOB did!

A short lived race this week with an enforced retirement after Alice decided to throw herself over the side.

Some idiot cancelled the IRC start so it was a busy line to negotiate with an all-in W class. This was done with a nice, fast 40 deg apparent stbd fetch into the line underneath the reaching in fleet giving us a front row start and good control. The natural gap between shall I say "Q" class boats and the rest let us flop over and take the right. Also plenty of gap to take the port lay line procession into the windward mark (I). There'd been a big shift right pre-start and we'd expected this to continue as the sea breeze established. All good.

Here comes the hoist. Ayso up and filled, jib down. Bit deeper than we'd have liked. I gave Alice the sheet for trimming. Darren calls "Ease" as she'd strapped it. Steve drives down anyway. I call "Trim" as the kite collapses and Alice braces her body to trim on. Trouble was the impatient bloke in the pit (me!) had already trimmed on so Alice pulled against nothing and went straight over the side.

She didn't bob round for very long. A pretty decent MOB recovery and you really see the value of the Laser 28's lovely boarding ladder. If you're going to go swimming in the bay in your jeans then this time of year is probably the best time to do it!

Damp Alice

Dead phone for Alice, a retirement for Farr Out but no real harm done. I think we'll take that as our discard. Thanks to the race officer for laughing when we reported our retirement and MOB recovery.