Sunday 22 May 2011

Mirror Dinghies- A Race To The River Fest!





The River Fest is an event held at Newport Quay (I blogged about it May 2010-see old posting).

This year the MMA organised a Mirror dinghy race up the river with the finish line at the Quay.

Five Mirror dinghies took part on a glorious day of sunshine and a good F3-4 S to SW Breeze.






The start was delayed for about half an hour as the safety boat was still aground on her swing mooring, but once the tide had washed in a little more, the five minute hooter sounded and we all tried to gain the best position for a good start.

I was hoping to take photos of the actual racing but we had superb conditions for sailing and it became a very exciting race So I was very busy crewing!


Out in the open river (opposite Island Harbour) we had a fantastic sail; choppy water, a strong breeze and all the little dinghies with sails hauled in tight beating up against the wind, each trying to gain an advantage and calling Starboard on each other. It was tight racing.


We needed to tack all the way up river and as it was about 3 hours before High Water the river became more and more shallow as we approached Newport with a combination of this and the wind becoming less and less as we passed through the more built up banks of the Medina we needed to put in shorter tacks.


Carefully daring to tack last minute before hitting the mud, the race became tense and painfully slow. Every tack crucial, Skipper whispering "Lee ho - make it a good one".


We were in the lead by the time we reached the Newport Rowing Clubhouse, but slipped down to 3rd as we entered the Quay.


Amazingly bit by bit Skipper edged us back to 2nd and then it was neck and neck for the line. We put in two very quick tacks and got a little wind lift and using this to our advantage we glided over the finish line!!

We had won!

A brilliant race, quite exhausting but excellent fun!


So I'm pleased we have won a Cup for the season already.



Sunday 15 May 2011

On The Wheel







I'm really looking forward to this seasons new fleeces from this Springs shearing






In the meantime I'm just about to start work on carding and spinning up a small dark fleece, the last one I have in stock.







It has been lightly scoured just to remove the dirt, leaving some grease in for ease of spinning.


I shall spin a yarn for hand knitting and see how many skeins I can make from it.


My original idea was to use this fleece to spin with another to produce a mixed yarn because it is on the small size and with it being of these lovely soft, black ,grey and brown hues it lends itself well to blending to give me a naturally coloured yarn.


But I have decided to get this fleece processed before I take delivery of any new fleeces to give me storage space.



ALSO I love seeing a basketful of hand spun yarn just already for me to dive in and Cast On!