"Moving on Up"

It's that time of the year when you wonder whether it would have been wiser to lay up for the winter. But no - we keep focussed on next year and Cork Week. We have a lot to do to be even slightly competitive as we will be sailing in Cruisers 1 (a very tough class). We started out the year with no boat and no crew.
Start with two sails !
We raced white sails for the DBSC season from April to September racing weekly on Saturdays and entered a number of Dublin regattas. All in all a good year as we have come a long way from a group on non-racers and a number of non-sailors to a crew that can give most boats a good run for their money with two sails ! We have no Silverware to show for it but have a bit of Glass with three 2nd places

By the end of September we had 5 regular crew (inclusive of myself).
And then move to Three
Now the "Turkey Shoot" was on the cards. This is a progressive ECHO set of 7 races over November and December held on Sunday mornings. So we decided its time to fly the spinnaker. Warrior is set up with both Asymmetric (with ans A1,A2 and A3) and Symmetric (S1 and S2). We decided that we would start with a As and got professional trainers out with us (Prof twice and Kenny once) out on a few Saturdays to run us through the ropes. We have also asked out an experienced Bowman from another 34.7 layed up for the winter to sail with us for the Turkey Shoot. We now need to up our crew numbers to 8, so have started the process of the search for a Bowman, Mastman and Pit. We now have our Bowman (actually bow-woman - new to sailing this year and new to this role last week). We have had two races with the spinnaker and bar being a little slow on the hoist and drop we managed the big kite well. Great fun and certainly makes for a more enjoyable and testing sail. We have two races left before a break until early February when the "Spring Chicken" (6 races on Sunday mornings) begins. In the meantime I have contacted the other 34.7s in the Bay (three of them) to get involved in joint training sessions in the new year. Sailing against similar (and more experienced) boats will be great for us and likely make the other boats feel good ! So we have race 6 this Sunday with gusts of 30 knots expected and pretty cold - so on with the thermals, mid-layer and Oilies - even time for the balaclava. AND HERES OUR LAST RACE WITHOUT THE SPINNAKER FOR THE RECORD