Scouts - Round the Island Yacht Race

Although not sailing competitively, being at the Vaal for the Round the Island race is always nice. It was also our first chance to really use our gig with it's new rigging.

Saturday morning dawned, bright but still. The brats lost some D-shackles while rigging the boats, which made my day.

Mean while, Eastleigh had a sizable lead on Benoni and was already going around the back of the island. The wind had died completely so there was no chance of any sailing. Eastleigh finished at about 14:00, taking just under four hours to complete the course. At 15:00 our crew was about 3/4 of the way to the island, but there was still no sign of Benoni, so we headed out to look for them. We eventually found them near the island, about 10 km from the finish. Seeing as they had taken 5 hours to do 13km we decided to tow them back. In the meantime, our crew had turned around and hitched a lift with another power boat, so everyone was back by 16:00, despite only one crew having completed the course.

Soon after, we headed back to DAC as everyone was tired and sunburnt. After supper everyone relaxed in the clubhouse before we hit the sack.

Sunday dawned with a decent wind. I did not allow any of my scouts to compete in the main event on the Sunday as none of them have any racing experience, so we just did some recreational sailing instead. Our gig is rigged with the mast and main from a dabchick and we also had a gypsy and an O-9'r. Everyone had a really good sail and there were smiles all around - even from me as I had a jol sailing the gig

Hopefully next year we can actually sail the race.