Penultimate racing day
The last day of the races once again brought fine winds and waves. Our committee boat was at the Windward position today and we had a new Royal Navy officer aboard, Anna. She had been on the finish boat and had been seasick and I wasn’t sure that she would be any different aboard our boat. But evidently, she had gotten her sea legs and did very well, although it was a close call when she did spotting work with the binoculars as that job makes even the hardiest of sailors somewhat queasy.
Many of the boats were quite aggressive on the start line and unfortunately there was a collision when Spirit of Juno hit Lee Overlay Partners on the start line and both boats were damaged and forced to retire. I did see the event unfold and got pictures of the collision.
Apart from that event everything went smoothly all day with nary a hitch. I motored our committee boat back to the docks and for the first time we didn’t get line honors on the other committee boat and had to take the inside docking position. Once at the dock we got started with dismantling and sorting out the committee boat gear and removing the flags from the poles and storing everything.
Alex, Rosie, and I were invited to the Royal Naval Tot Club along with the two serving officers from the Navy. Today’s sessions were held outside at Nelson’s Dockyard and the tot of rum we imbibed was significant, to say the least!
After that the final prizegiving ceremony took up the rest of the day. In addition to the normal prizes and speeches from politicians the volunteers on the committee boat were mentioned and we were paraded to the front of the stage (but we didn’t get to step on the stage itself).