John Clementson reports on his Endeavour experience 14 Oct 2015
Wow, what a weekend of sailing – awesome! Still buzzing. Did it live up to our expectations? Yes, absolutely. We achieved our goals and the event was everything I imagined it would be.
The weather was perfect with sunshine all weekend and the wind steadily increasing from Friday onwards from a good direction down the river and reaching 20knts by the finish.
We are still exhausted from the long days on the water and the excitement of the whole event.
The organisation was second to none and most definitely head and shoulders above any other event that I have been to. Every small detail was covered from when we arrived at registration to help on and off the water and even a hearty meal provided before we left on our journey home. We were all treated almost like royalty and nothing was too much trouble.
On the water the racing was tough with an hour's sail out to the start line and hard, hard races on each of the days and then an hour's sail back. The courses were spot on – can you believe eight races and not one general recall – with very little waiting around in between races and even on water lunch provided. I did get a little worried when the windward mark was so far away, it was the size of a small blob on the horizon and I knew how much it was going to hurt my legs hiking out on the beat up to it, but the races were the right length and the mark setting with the tide effect was again spot on.
Launching and recovering was another example of how well managed the event was with people waiting to help get the boats out of the water and on the trollies very efficiently and with little trouble – not easy to do.
Food seemed to be available all the time with pasta dished up straight after racing on the Saturday when everyone was starving after a day on the water followed by an evening meal – perfect.
The weekend will stay with us for a very long time as it was truly an awesome experience and one that I would recommend to anyone that gets the opportunity. I would love to do it again if I get the chance and would definitely do some things a little differently in our preparation next time even if we are a little out of our depth. The choice of the RS 200 I thought was perfect and gave everyone a chance to have some good close racing with boats all of the same speed – although some of the bigger guys may not agree!
The boat is all packed away now and ready to be delivered back to its owner – in one piece, thank goodness!