Having missed the week of Halloween it felt good to be back on the water again! Although the day started with the inevitable rain it did little to dampen our spirits and we soon got out on the water! I went out in one of the RS Visions again in order to practice my trapezing again; this could have gone better if the wind has stayed constant. It was, however, very gusty and this made it quite difficult to stay upright let alone get right out on the trapeze! I had a go but I had to quickly unhook myself while hanging out over the water because it looked like the boat was going to come down on top of me; it didn’t and I ended up very wet and very cold but laughing madly! The rest of the morning continued as it had started but we were all happy, if a little bit freezing, when we got back on land. The afternoon was different again; after quite a long lunch we went out again to practice our manoeuvres. This went much better than the morning’s efforts and was very enjoyable. So, all in all another excellent day.
Saturday 14th November
This week has to have been the best day of sailing I have done all year if not ever. It was a windy day but, as usual, this did not deter us! I went out in a fully rigged RS Vision complete with a spinnaker (which didn’t in fact come out until after lunch). When we were told what we would be doing my heart sank, trapezing and sailing without a rudder; my two nemeses! We got out and the powerboat came over and gave the dreaded order: ‘right, it’s your turn to do rudderless’! What then happened was amazing...It actually worked and I was finally able to sail between the two markers without the use of my rudder. I was so pleased but this was short-lived the next seeming insurmountable task was trapezing. As the wind remained constantly quite strong and thanks to the amazing ability of the helmsman this also worked to my great surprise and I managed to stay out for quite some time!
The afternoon too went well and I managed to do quite a bit of sailing with my spinnaker so after just a few hours I had accomplished quite a lot!
Saturday 21st November
We were in for a shock when we arrived at the ULAC because, due to the recent rain, the whole place was flooded. The place where we usually rig our boats, well above the top of the slipway, was under several inches of water. After rigging the boats however it was straight out onto the water to do some proper sailing! It was quite windy so we really got moving! We did a few manoeuvres but mainly just sailed around enjoying ourselves! The afternoon went well too; we got to just get out and sail which was just great fun! The only slight problem was the cold! It was absolutely freezing! Next week will be the last of this year but we’ll still have all of next year’s sailing to look forward too!
And some pictures of record high levels on Lough Derg!
