NWN Week Part 6

Blakeney is an incredible natural harbour, a place of understated beauty with an abundance of wild life aswell as being an interesting place to sail.

I have sailed there twice now and only seen a fraction of this fasinating place. Its the kind of place that I am itching to explore and mybe I will one day.

In terms of a racing venue it is the furthest from our base (I was camping at Snettisham Beach during the week) and took about 45 minutes to get there.
The race area is in a good bit a water when the tide is in with some current but not to strong. The only problem is getting to it from the launch site which requires sailing down a very narrow channel with shallows on either side. Fortunately we managed to get a tow out to the racing area.

The winds started light (F1) but better than the day before and they gradually freshened through the race and we finished in about a F2-3. Being well in from the sea there were no waves.

The start was not brilliant but the best so far but I got caught up in the disturbed air of the National 12 fleet as they crossed our path. I tried to tack to get clear but it didn't help, in fact I think it made the situation worse, as a result I wasn't in the leading boats at the first mark although I wasn't far behind.
Inspite of this I did catch up and managed to profit from the errors of others to finish 2nd by the narrowest of margins, 1 second behind the winner and 2ft ahead of 3rd place. I was very pleased with the result.