My guys as I call them Rene and Gus sailed with me on the Moore – Flashman on Saturday it was light air and we had a fun day despite doing very poorly. The first start I believe took 4 general recalls to get us off the line – there was a ebb pushing everyone over and I guess people weren’t paying enough attention to it. I made many changes to the boat after the Nationals and they didn’t seem to help so back to the drawing board. The problem is that one of the changes might have helped but seeing as I did so many at once I don’t know which ones to fix! Silly me.

On Sunday we went out with Mary on Astra and I went from steering to Saturday to bow on Sunday. It was odd weather for October – we got the usual June weather instead it was blowing 35knots in the slot between angel and alcatraz. The great pumpkin is a fun race as it is a reverse pursuit race you can go either way round and the smallest boats start first. Not many boats started behind us and as it looked glassy calm in Racoon so after much conversation we went to Alcatraz first and then went through Racoon last. The winning boat went the other way but they were small and started a good hour and half before us. My friend Tom from the UK came out with us and the Astra trimmers got taken to boot camp as he is a really great trimmer I hope they enjoyed the coaching. We ended up 25th out of the 164 boats that started.

After racing I had a casual meal at my house and made spagetti carbonara which went down well I think I will do it again sometime as it really is a simple meal to make after a day on the boat.

On our way home after racing.