Dartmouth week

Having been invited back to sail with the Redshifters following a successful first outing during Cowes week where I helped in the final race to secure 3rd place over all I headed down to the beautiful South west for a second week.

For those who like me don't know Dartmouth regatta week, it is a 4 day sailing event much like Cowes week but a lot smaller and condensed. Dartmouth, on the bank of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal river allowing easy access to the sea.

the regatta was officially established in 1834 and became a Royal regatta in 1856 when by chance Queen Victoria was forced to seek refuge in the river due to bad weather.

This year the weather was stunning, with wall to wall sunshine for the first 3 days. Unfortunately little to no wind on the first day meant n racing we left the pontoon for a little motor around with the boat to do some fishing. the rest of the day was filled with paddle boarding exploration of the river and a run around the headland in the evening.

the week is a fun one as well as a highly competitive race week. We had amazing fireworks on two nights and air displays from the Euro fighter and red arrows.

Each day we had slightly more wind than the last. it seemed that the more wind we had the better the boat seemed to perform under IRC rating compared to the other boats in the class.

On the last day we won the day securing 3rd Place over all.

It was a great week and a huge amount learnt about the boat and the sailing venue. I am looking forward to hopefully doing some sailing with the fantastic REDSHIFT team in the future.