Got one question to ask, why would anyone want to organise an event. Some how I was tricked into stepping up, not sure how, maybe it was more a dare, can’t really remember. But one thing’s for sure, I’ll be the last to complain when it doesn’t go according to plan, suddenly I’ve just become aware just how much goes into making it happen. Some one please stop me next time.

Even though I’ve been working on the event for months, it never really seemed real, until last week that is. Suddenly it was all to close, think that’s when sleep stopped. The thought of having thirty sailors sitting at Southend in a force ten with no timing suddenly made me feel a little sick.

Call it panic, or just making sure, but I decided the electrics in the van needed to be beefed up. I’ve tested the equipment and the set-up in the van lasted six hours, but just had to double up on everything. Think it’ll last a week now, but that didn’t stop the nerves.

I only wanted to race at Southend, but it was dawning on me that sailing could be the last thing I’d be doing. Graham from Wet ‘n’ Dry had offered his services along with Mike Horsfall and Jamie Saunders to help to ensure everything went smoothly on the water while Peter Scott took control of the van.

I used to buy all my computer gear from him years ago, and seeing I was the only one who had tried out the system, I was relived to get him onboard. Like the battery power, I’d also added a back-up system in the van.

It doesn’t matter how many times I got the kids to run past the camera’s at the end of the drive, there’s nothing better than a live test. Monday was that first test, it all looked good, but with no wind it still felt like running in the dark, Tuesday couldn’t have been different.

Getting fast times is one thing, but only the WSSRC can make the records. We have to have a commissioner at every days sailing, he’s there to ensure we are running to the same standard as all the other events around the world. It shouldn’t make any difference but knowing we had not one but three overseeing the event just added a few butterflies.

With so many riders coming from aboard its not always possible for everyone to make it over, for our first event we ran with sixteen riders, everyone was on site at day break and rigging up. The local radio was talking up the wind forecast, but int he end it was windfinder.com that came through with the right prediction.

The ray has two courses but for the first round we wanted to use the western end one. The wind came in strong from the south as promised; but that made for a square course. It was fast, but we needed it to swing more to the west and anything could have been possible. Unfortunately when the wind moved round, it also dropped.

For those who know Southend will be disappointed with the speeds, but those there for the first time were amazed. Looking back at the results it couldn’t have been better for the event, ten new personal best speed and Finian was a hairs breath from breaking the production record.

I’d like to thank everyone for there help, but one person I haven’t mentond, Peter Davis, he’s been helping from the start and was still there in the early hours as we went though the video to confirm the results.

Bring on the next windy day… maybe I’ll get time to take a few pix