Ah well, maybe not today! - Saturday 9th June 2012

As I was unable to even think about sailing last weekend, due to work commitments - all over the Jubilee weekend - I had high hopes of getting out on the water this weekend.

Early in the week, the weather forecast suggested that Saturday might be a reasonable opportunity, sunny with maybe a stiff-ish breeze.

Saturday morning, it seemed a bit more than forecast, but I packed the sails and foil along with my other kit and headed off to the res'.

On arrival, it was blowing like a bugger - to use a technical term.

Not giving up just yet, I sat in the car for a while, then checked the dinghy was still OK, given the recent winds, and finally headed for the clubhouse to watch developments. Wind gauge showing around 18 kts gusting above 20.

At the start of the official sailing time, one laser launched and this was followed a few minutes later by the sailing course.

Watching sailors launch in a reasonable wind could be considered amusing by some, but entertainment wasn't on my mind. I was still, metaphorically, beating myself up for not continuing sailing last time, and I was looking for any encouragement to brave it again.

Five boats, varying from RS200's to Enterprises, launched after some considerable efforts by the crews of two or three. All were using a small sail, with Mirror icons on them mostly; giving roughly half the sail area of a full size sail for the dinghy. Flogging wildly in the wind as they were rigged.

Within ten minutes, three had gone over. After about 30 minutes, I noticed the Laser had recovered to the hard and was being packed away.

I caught half a conversation involving a windsurf instructor, to the effect that they wouldn't be taking their students out in this sort of wind.

About this time, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and reluctantly, decided to give it a miss. I couldn't see me getting onto the water until 2pm anyway and the winds hadn't shown any inclincation to abate by that time.

Single handed, it was going to be a struggle to get launched and recovered - maybe OK once launched and away, but as this is supposed to be fun and I didn't want to damage the dinghy.

So, off home I went. Bonneville out of the garage and 60 miles around Somerset later back into the garage.

Not a wasted day after all.