Next one!

A busy week is nearly at an end - there's just the small matter of training tomorrow, travelling eight hours, and then beating Rochdale of course!. As I reported in the previous blog there has been a distinct lack of words recently. On Tuesday night I bolted upright in bed (no not what your thinking!) and realised that I hadn't blogged, it was too late to go downstairs though and my body had also reached the 'poleaxed' stage!.
Last night however I had a valid excuse, I was wet, it was late, and I was still swaying from side to side. No, I hadn't been to the pub to watch the England game (I did see some of the second half but anyway back to the story), I had been out at sea!!!!!!.
A mate of mine (another Chris) mentioned a while a go that I should pop over for a sail sometime - I agreed, saying that I couldn't wait (whilst actually thinking that I would fall in!). Then the text came through SEE YOU AT 6, THE RACE STARTS AT 6.30!!. I fumbled with the phone to send the words back RACE, WHAT RACE?. The reply was something along the lines of 'It's nothing just get there for 6'. I did and before long I was being rowed to a big boat with big sails and a lot of rope!!!. Once on board (and after handshakes with the crew, who had the combined sailing experience of about 200 years!) I soon learned that my job would be to keep out of the way, watch the boom, and be ready to jump from side to side - I was more than happy with this task after being given a five minute crash course by Chris which involved numerous words I had never heard of!!.
If I said Boom, beam, cleat, coffee grinder, furl, haylard, Jib, spinnaker, trim, tiller, or even port to you, you would probably be as out of your depth (no pun intended) as I was. And that was before the race had even started!. When the siren went off it was manic, everyone had a job (except me), some had two or three roles. Whether it be steering (helm or skipper) the boat or winding one of the three hundred ropes on board it was all hands on deck. Don't even get me started on turning round, all you need to know is that if someone shouts "STARBOARD", it is going to be a close shave, and there were many!. I got very wet, didn't stand up for two hours ( apart from being asked to lean against the boom every so often, which though I was told could see me thrown into the sea and to be careful!!!), and was only saved from being entirely useless by the fact that I could be used as ballast!!. It was brilliant though, the weather was fantastic and the sailing experience was a real eye opener (It's not as easy as it looks!). Thanks to Chris and all the boy's for inviting me. Let's just say that the term 'Fathom' was used but in a different context and that the word 'overboard' wasn't used, and that was good enough for me.


CH