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Go Sailing!
About me.....
As a youngster I began sailing in an Optimist at my local Yacht Club in Gibraltar. I still remember when a fleet of new, highly polished Optimists arrived at the club all laying on the Yard and being handed over to their new owners!
One of the first requirements was to name our new 'boat' and so we got thinking bearing in mind that we could have any name as long as it began with an 'O'. It is quite amazing how ingenious kids can be and all sorts of variations of well known words in the English language were altered drastically to meet the 'O' requirement!
The natural progression was to 420's and then Victory's, the Club's privately owned wooden fleet. During this period we would travel to the UK and race against the likes of Sea View Yacht Club and Portsmouth.
When the frontier between Gibraltar and Spain opened it became easier to compete at different levels and soon two J24's were purchased privately so we were now able to compete on offshore scene. My first experience on a J24 was at a Marbella regatta which was not that successful to say the least. The team soon mastered the 'J' and soon we were towing these two boats to Monaco to enjoy interclub racing in a fleet of J24's.
This lead to our competing in Medemblik, Holland, at the European Championships. Once again we experienced what it was like to be part of large fleet and what happens when you get hit by lighting!
Soon after I had the fantastic opportunity to sail with the same team of close friends onboard a Swan 46, Trumpeter, for which I am ever grateful to Louis, or as he is known by his friends, Mr T.
Everything changed once you step onboard a Swan 46 which is a sailing boat rather than a dingy! Onboard Trumpeter we have competed at the Gibraltar Open Regatta, the Marbella Regatta Weekend, Puerto Santa Maria in Cadiz, Malaga, Sotogrande, Puerto Banus, across the Straits of Gibraltar in Ceuta the Spanish enclave in Morocco and of course last but by no means least, the Rolex Swan Cup organised at the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, in Puerto Cervo, Sardina.
We have competed at these on a number of occasions over more than a decade and have been, thanks to the brass at and around the helm, done reasonably well! It really has been fun!