Well the weather forecast said it all, at the start of the week it was 5knots rising slightly, by Friday it was 20 knots, well the actuallity of Saturday was 24 knot average with gusts to 35. Yes the race officer did send us to the very far corner of the dam and yes we did have to survive until after the F18's started and there was only one left standing, racing was duely abandoned.

But what a fantastic facility is Rutland Water and for anyone in the UK, you should put it on your "to do list". With the accolade of RYA club of 2008 one could only admire the facilities, the huge expanse of racing area and for the friendly and dedicated race crew, all hats off to them to try and organise the racing in such strong conditions.

Sunday was much the same with some really strong squalls but probably 15 to 20 averages with some dead patches and some really strong patches. Never the less about 25 intrepid souls did start with 4 races run.

As far as the F16's go, we were lumped into the fast handicap start of all boats except the F18's, mind you the F18's only had 6 boats turn up and we were the next biggest class with 5. In with the Shadows, a couple of Hurricanes, a lonely FX1 and an assortment of other boats.

Who were the winners, well to be honest I have to say the Shadows with their small sail plan and small spinnakers were probably the ideal tool but the F16's were up there as well with Paul/ Anne and to a lessor degree the others all taking the lead at times and winning over the fleet. But and its a big but here, we all did go swimming pretty regularly with the wind getting so strong in some of the puffs that even dead downwind, the kite would still have you over. Best 2 hull dive I've seen for a while was Paul and Anne, lovely sight but then worked out I was next in line of the squall.

I haven't any results as yet but would presume the Shadows handicap would put us down the fleet a way. Lots of breakages from falls and the likes also saw our fleet numbers drop off towards the end.

Plenty of " pub " action, some good food, lots of chat, tall stories of dare doing, what more could you want to spend an enjoyable weekend. So cocooned in the sailing were we that we didn't hear ( dispite every newspaper and newscast ) of yet another MP's method of "cooking the books" , ah bliss