Drama at Carsington as George and Cliff score equal points    From Nigel Harrison

                                                                                                         (Photos Pauline Love, CSC and click for more photos)

If you were not there, you missed a good thrash about the water last weekend. Arriving to force 4 gusting 5 winds and lovely sunshine.

 I met friendly Daryl and Yvonne with their new Catapult, Norman was rigging his boat. John Pep, Dave Alastair and I had been there on Friday and created four marvellous racing machines from a pile of metal, rubber tubing and wire much to the amazement of the Carsington crowds.

 Saturday saw Stuart, Gareth and Neal arrive to create equally amazing contraptions in half the time. Cliff and Jo, George and Margaret had cunningly wired ahead and had the lake drained to reveal a South of France like beach where they parked their luxury camper vans and sun loungers. The rest of us Catapulters (as we like to call ourselves) flocked down to the beach and created a colourful sight of 11 Catapults blowing in the breeze.

Above: the leaders upwind in the first Race 1: Stuart holds off Paul and Gareth

Saturday produced three races. (Click here for race write-ups) The boss (AKA Paul) battling it out with Gareth Cliff, Stuart and George with your truly leading the rear watching the impressive skills of John, Neal, Alastair, George and Dave ahead of me. In the prize giving the “good turnout of Catapults” was mentioned three times. Something to do with our presence at the Saturday dinner when the Dart 15 and A class crowds were moved aside to make the biggest table available for our noisy but friendly crowd. The Catapult fleet continues to grow whilst I am sure that the Dart 15 fleet is now much smaller than I remember. The reporter from Hello magazine asked ne the secret of our success, ANP I replied “Awfully Nice People” I replied led by our head ANP John Pep who then spent the next 40 minutes plying the attractive reporter with G&T, “Watch out for the Catapult article in a future edition of Hello Magazine, please let me know when you see it.

                                                                                             (Above: Neal and George tight upwind in Race Three)

Oh yes and there was more and faster racing on Sunday, with force six gusts, manly trapezing, masses of spray the sort of day when you turn onto a reach and instantly sit back on the transom and far back as possible. It is a testament to the Catapulters skills that we had no capsizes.

Another great weekend, thank you to all the contributors who took part

(Any correlation to factual events in this report is purely accidental)  Nigel

The leaders reaching, Race Three: Paul holds off Stuart and Gareth