Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Sailing and Seas Jan 08

We have been surrounded by 10000's of tiny round blobs of algae the last few weeks. Hard to photograph but looks amazing, like a sea of tapioca...


Pete has spent the last few month stressing and spending far too much time in the office/ not sleeping as he was landed with organising the InterSchools regatta. Unlike the usual committee he had none of the contacts etc so we were trawling arounf HK quite often finding the right companies to make stuff we needed. Rather than tiny tacky looking cups which looked like they were made out of foil, we decided on lead crystal electroplated trophies which were etched to show off the amazing colours.
The same company made tiny triangular flags too. Pete also convinced the board that printed souvenir towels were a useful free gift (a lot of companies sponsor this event by printing up sailing shirts etc for it, and 1 did the towels).



Each school can enter as many teams as it wants. There are 6 (or more if they want to swap in different kids on each race) per team, sailing in pairs. Luckily/ sadly 1 school did not enter this year which meant it was a far shorter list to let every team sail against every other team. This is maybe because it was Carolyn's school, the lady I did the frog on, and she was absent due to a rather nasty holiday. She & her 2 teenage sons & hubby & a sailing mate took their beautiful new yacht over to the Phillipines and were sailing it back when their mast ripped off in high winds & waves. From what we can gather, motoring on with the bilge pumps keeping them afloat, they eventually radioed for help as they were running low on petrol and water. They were too far from either land mass for helicopters, but to tankers passing by started searching. One eventually found them and started winching them onboard, I imagine a terrifying sight as those tankers are usually at least 7 stories high just to the deck level! In the process her husband got hurt, but she & the boat boy were left till last. In the storm their yacht was about to be crushed by the tanker so they leapt aboard, and he was immediately sucked towards the giant 11 meter high propeller. She later found his chewed up life jacket and thought he was dead. The crew lost her in the waves, and as it was such a massive tanker it took them over an hour to turn round and go back. By then she had floated off into the distance, her jacket was sinking and she thought she was going to die. Then, amazingly, she found the boat boy and they started slowly drowning together. At the last minute they were found after the crew spotted a cannister containing the families valuables floating near her. They were saved, but when taking off her husband's storm gear, discovered he was badly injured with blood spurting everywhere, so he spent a long time in hospital. Thats the 3rd story of disaster on the HK -Phillipnes sail I have heard, Tim and Pete were EXTREMELY lucky...


So, anyway, there were less teams than usual sailing. We have had unseasonably cold & wet weather, so Pete moved the catering section which is usually down on the main hard standing up to the middle floor where there are some indoor areas. he also put the DJ/ PA system there.
I was handing out the towels, shirts, water etc to the teams as they arrived up there, and after the briefing (by an Olympic sailing judge no less) off they went.
They were sailing in pairs on wee Topaz boats, starting near our boat, heading towards Deep Water Bay, then back down to Middle Island and finishing opposite our boat which was the official 'finish boat' and had been tied at both ends.
I warned the ladies doing the final scores about the noisy ship's cat, but when I went over Domino had not surfaced. I soon realised every time she got nosey enough to come up and meow, a race would finish (2 every 10 or so minutes) and the winner of each race got a blast from an air horn as they crossed the finish line. So she was NOT impressed! Pus it was freezing - I gave the ladies duvets to wrap up in. They did say it was the best finish boat ever for comfort (loo etc!) and refused to swap to the start boat when asked! I stayed to take pics for Peter.



HK Sea School, which I think is generally for the not-so-clever kids, usually won every race, often taking 1st, 2nd and 3rd with their 3 teams. But I think they also have to go sailing nearly every day which most of the other schools only do once a week, if that! It was funny, they looked almost military, in matching logo-d wetsuits and waterproofs, but they had the tiniest kids...



To keep those waiting onshore amused, Pete & co had planned a 'Top Gear' style 'Stig' race in a Laser boat. They called it the Bowne Blaster after the main sponsor (no blasting though, no wind!).
We gave up on finding 4 motorbike helmets so in the end Pete and his predeccessor Richard were each to set the times to beat. (Richard did Petes job for a few years a while back then quit to try and get into the Olympics sailing with his mate - sadly they were just knocked out so he is back and looking for a job, so works for Pete just now). The lady I was on the finish boat was really pleased as Pete picked one of her son's as his team mate - as she correctly guessed her son was useful as he was so light- and their time of 10 minutes (there was no wind all weekend!) was unbeaten. Apart from by rowing coach Johnny whose 3 minute record was later disqualified b the Olympic Judge Ronnie 'the Kraken' MaCracken as he was using illegal propulsion (ie not a sail!).



I can't believe they kept eating ice cream AND running around barefoot in shorts, but I suppose all the rugby etc games warmed them up!
We were kept busy delivering hot drinks to the volunteers, but messyist was the swapovers.
They soon realised sailing 12 boats to the dock and back every race tripled the time it took to swap teams, so they started ferrying the kids out and swapping them onto the boats from the ribs.

Entertainment also came from a portuguese (?) tanker using the same radio channel as us for a while...


Richard did the commentating which was fabulous, even interviewing different schools and kids,
whilst the DJ was Kevin who is the Sailing Coach for Aberdeen Yacht Club. The finale was the top pair from each school team racing right around Middle Island, with a continuous feedback for the spectators who didn't fit into the following ribs by mobile phone over the PA.


The Sea School won, and the prizes were liked though one did drop and crack his straight away! Still, a big relief for Peter now its over.......and he can catch up on his proper work!


But I think the luckiest was the moth that I spotted on a riser of the ramp leading up from the docks as we arrived in the morning. I meant to go and move it but it survived 48 kids thumping up and down the ramp every 15 minutes all day!
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