A long weekend of tangled lines

Teresa and Martin Bail, their 5th Citroen who survived their first night in the camper trailer

Teresa and Martin were keen to crew but even more excited to show off their 5th classic Citroen and almost new camper trailer. I wasn't at all surprised that after sleeping in it for the first time Martin proclaimed the need for a better mattress.

It was a long weekend and the Col and Jan had organised a highly successful 3 day kids race training camp. There were juniors from Tweed, Ballina and Yamba as well as our own BRSC ones ranging in age from very small, I guess not more than 6, up to around 14. They spent the time on the water and when not on the water having fun playing table tennis, spotlighting after dark and not a computer or X box to be seen.

It was quite rough on Saturday afternoon and we put a reef in Little Dragon and sailed up to Harwood Bridge and back. Good fun despite one minor incident which resulted in the need for a new wind indicator - but I will draw a veil over the details. John Woods reckons I don't need a wind indicator but I like to have one.

Martin and I planned to re-carpet the skids on the  the trailer and that meant stern anchoring overnight. I enjoyed a night afloat gently rocking to and fro. Next morning John Woods dashed over around 9.30 am and said that the tide was just right to head down to Iluka on the ebb, have lunch and return on the flood. So we grabbed an esky of goodies for lunch and off we went with John leading the way (see below).

Martin up anchored and found the anchor warp and painter in a tangle and spent around 45 minutes sitting on the fore deck trying to untangle them. I have no idea how they had become so tangled up. Despite that it was a great sail, sunny and around 12 knots of northerly wind. We reached most of the way to Iluka and tied up to the hotel pontoon. By that time there were ominous clouds and it looked like it could blow up nasty on the return trip. So we had a hurried lunch and and I put a reef in "just in case". Although the wind increased a bit on the return trip nothing dramatic. We made good speed with a broad reach most of the way.

We hadn't done the trailer repairs so I needed to stern anchor again. I thought that I had got stern anchoring under control but this time the anchor didn't hold, so we had to re anchor and decided to put out a second stern line "just in case". The next case of seriously tangled lines. Eventually, very weary, I headed up to the clubhouse for much needed shower, cuppa and red wine - hard to know which to have first.

Despite our weariness Martin and I completed carpeting the trailer skid and then they set off home and I prepared for another night afloat. I turned in extremely early too tired to socialise.

John Woods

J

One of the many lines that tangled

Monday morning was yet again picture perfect, sunny and not a ripple on the water. I decided that rather than find new crew and sail I would pack up and enjoy relaxing for a while before driving home. Next snag. I couldn't get the anchor up. I thought I was lacking strength and asked the strongest looking man in sight to give it a go. He tried valiantly and also failed. So we tied a fender to the anchor and left it to be retrieved in a while. Later two men in a fishing boat with very powerful outboard said they would pull it up for me, they pronounced it snagged on something but kept trying. Finally it came up snagged on nothing more than a very large lump of black, super sticky Harwood mud.

After packing up I turned my attention to the juniors. They were sailing a new generation of modern dinghies specially designed for juniors, I haven't got a handle on their class names but they looked fantastic. I don't think any junior is going to want to be seen in any of the old style dinghies. BRSC may have to update its training fleet.