Having grown up living within a mile from the sea on the south coast of England it was difficult to not get drawn into some sort of on the water activities when I was young – be it fishing, surfing, sailing… I went down the route of sailing/windsurfing (which reminds me – I need to post a blog soon with some recent windsurfing photos!) and spent most of my teenage years sailing out of Felpham Sailing Club – which is a mile or so from Bognor Regis in West Sussex. Although we don’t live in Felpham we’re members of the club (I’ve been a member for over 25 years) and know many of the members and like to help out when I can.
This past weekend was the Blaze National Championships which were being held at Felpham Sailing Club so I took this as an opportunity to combine volunteering at the event and also take photos.
The event was over three days and I was only available on the Friday and Saturday (as on Sunday I was back up in West London photographing the Richmond Park TT bike race) and we had some fantastic sailing conditions – well, they were fantastic if you like a good breeze and don’t mind getting wet!
On Friday I spent the day on a couple of different rescue boats out at sea and when I wasn’t actively helping sailors who were in difficulty (I had to jump into the water on a couple of occasions to help out) I was taking photos. Friday was the windiest of the two days and two races were completed in the afternoon.
On Saturday I was on the water helping/photographing for about 4.5 hours and didn’t have to jump in the cold water once! Result.
Although I had to head off on Saturday evening (after the sailing club BBQ and a pint of course ;) it was actually kind of fortunate as a heavy fog rolled in during the morning and didn’t lift until the prize-giving took place later in the day!
For a detailed race report please see the Yachts & Yachting website and for my set of photos (over 250 of them) please visit the Blaze National Championships 2011 gallery.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 9:23 pm
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Good afternoon
I have been looking at your photos and they are very good. I
won’t buy anything as there is no room for them. Ross remarked about the picture of the deer in the lounge and thought it was great. Talk soon
Mum x