SORC training with Brian Tompson

After a few hours setting up the boat and fiddling with the instruments, we set off for our “short-handed tricks” weekend, led by Brian Thompson. The rendezvous on Friday night in the lightship at Haslar marina was not hard to spot – nor were the other attendees. Four of the eight crews were our competitors for the RBI – as was Pip Hare, one of our instructors! I grabbed an early night, having a bad case of jet lag, which made me feel a bit of a party-pooper, but at least I was reasonably fresh the following morning. We gathered for a briefing and learned our fate – two days of more manoeuvres that we would normally do in a whole race, packed into just a few hours. The weekend passed in a bit of a daze – and I’m still not sure if was due to timezonitis or simply exhaustion. We covered everything from short-handed tacking to gibing the kite – no mean feat if you don’t use the autohelm! We made a thorough nusance of ourselves on the Swashway offPortsmouth, even managing to stop the hovercraft at one point (oops – but not us personally, I think). As well as giving us some really valuable tips, our instructors, Brian, Pip and Paul Peggs also facilitated useful de-briefs, where we and our fellow attendees analysed performance, assisted by videos of our mastery and cock-ups, also bringing our own experience to the discussions. We also benefitted from an illuminating talk by Chris Tibbs. Although I came back pretty tired, it was a very valuable experience that should stand us in good stead for the big race.

Trevor