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Quintessentially British...

Posted 9 months, 18 days ago

Quintessentially British...
I'm continually astounded at just how dedicated sailors are. No matter what class I turn my attention to, there are brilliant stories of going above and beyond the call of duty to pursue the sport that we all love. Here's the latest email to emerge from the quite brilliant Merlin Rocket association: Magnus Love the blog and especially the rocket theme that you've been running with. My best mate and I bought our rocket in 93 .having just passed our driving tests we duly drove up to that famous sailing mecca...St Albans with an undersized road trailer, lashed the boat as best we could and drove back to Winchester with fingers crossed...very tightly as we were towing with a Mini! . The boat was chocked up in my parents garden, amidst the beautifully manicured lawn, prize winning roses etc and duly sanded to within an inch of its life! The target was to have the boat finished in time for rocket week in Salcombe or before my olds got so pissed off with sawdust all over the patio, windows, guinea pig etc. On a tight budget and equally limited boatbuilding knowhow we got her finished and once again took our lives in our hands, strapped it to the back of the mini and flew down to Salcombe, managing 80mph past Exeter Airport. We duly pitched our super mini sized one man tent at the bottom of the hill in the overflow camp site and headed into town to track down some local totty and drown ourselves in alcopops for courage. Needless to say we failed on one count but succeeded to get thoroughly battered and somehow made our way back to the campsite.  . In our youthful enthusiasm to track down said totty, we neglected to a) look at a forecast b) think about the consequences of pitching a tent at the bottom of a slope. We woke up shivering, waterlogged, hungover and were faced with 35kts from the south west! wet gear was transferred to the mini and headed into town to rig the boat and get sailing. With the boat rigged we headed out into the estuary and the scene that greeted us was one of utter devastation. Boats turtled everywhere, lots of little Jonnies and sophies crying for their mums who presumably had headed off  for afternoon tea in the Range Rover Sport or to fat face. needless to say we had an absolute blast and so far were convincing our fellow rocketeers that they were indeed a bunch of limp wristers for not venturing out. . What happened next still send shivers down my spine. We stacked it in running with the kite up, quite spectaculaly in fact and found ourselves within a split second treading water and the boat sinking..yes sinking by the bow. What we had neglected to spend money on was airbags, this expense would eat into our social budget and this was just not cricket. what we had procurred was a whole load of wine cask inners, that when emptied of wine and blown up made fantastic substitutes for air bags, that is if they are securely fastened in to the bow section. The scene must have resembled a couple of wino tramps who had been washed off a park bench in the rain and into the estuary as when rescue came we were two drowned rats sitting on a dory in the middle of the estuary surrounded by silver wine cask inners. . Attached to the dory was the painter from the rocket....the only thing attached to the boat above water! quite a crowd had gathered and our fellow rocketeers could not hide their satisfaction. we were eventually given a lift to a boathouse by one of the salcombe lifeboat heroes and plied with coffee. we salvaged the boat by dragging her to the beach with the help of a rib at low water. The only damage was a split centreboard which was 'professionally' repaired in the car park with the use of some British Airways, super strength cargo tape. We lived to tell the tale despite having to abandon the tent on night 2 and sleep the rest of the week in the mini, girls continued to ignore us despite us regaling our tales of brushes with death and we got drunk....lots, with the awesome bunch of sailors that is the Merlin Rocket class. Long may it live and long may it attract the type of people it does, although less of the young, cocky upstarts like us me thinks!  . Cheers . Paul Kelly safe and dry in Lymington   Full Story »

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