SAT, AUGUST 11 and SUN, AUGUST 12, 2001 LYTHAM ST ANNES, LANCASHIRE, WEST ENGLAND   Article from Andy Parr   Gosh, what fun! The Lytham summer do is normally a sunburn, boules and yachtpushing fest - but not this year. I took Friday off, and marvelled as I was parked on the M6 that the wind looked encouraging. This island of ours is really getting very crowded - Lytham's a five-hour run for me normally, but this time it was six hours each way - methinks I'll be peddling "Potties" in the west... anyway lovely sunny weather on the Friday and a tidy breeze too - Force 4 or 5 - which was just what was needed to get us moving through the traditional mess that the beach always is at this time of year. Put the 5 together, had a blast in that and got it half sorted for the weekend's racing - i.e. let the tyres down, angle the wheels over lots, etc then rigged a "Potty" for a pootle out on the banks. Quite a good turnout, especially from Anglia - but not many in the bar - only DCMB and Steve May and a lass from Holland arguably called Jan, joined later by Geoff Waterhouse. It was a lovely balmy evening for the stroll back to the B&B, with the wind still blowing. Mmmm, the prospects for Saturday looked good. And what a day Saturday turned out to be! The wind gently increased throughout the day, and Len Warren set us the trad course, with a N mark with the option of charging down the banks or heading inland onto the porridge to head to the S mark, before a fast dash across the porridge to the finish line, anti-clockwise as ever. The first race for me was a case of trying to keep the yacht going on the softer bits and bowling down the banks with the sheet out as there were ponds, gulleys, ravines, moon and the inevitable soft out there waiting to catch you out. God knows what went on it that race. Yachts were everywhere, going in all directions, apart from those stuck in the soft or wallowing in the ponds... but come the 2nd race and the wind had perked up appreciably to a good Force 5 - just what the doctor ordered to power through the shite and get on with the sailing! Yeeha! My kind of wind, so out of the window went the usual namby pamby faffing around and belting off in odd directions that I usually get up to on this beach and off I went with the pack on the proper course for once. Did it rain a little? Just a touch, just to cloud the visibility a tad, and lordy was it ever fun scorching down the banks flat out, veering round the ponds. Si Holder wiped out Dutch Jan while taking evasive action when faced with a fjord to cross - and lots of others found some memorable and refreshing lakes in which to relax. I romped my way up through the fleet without hitting anything of real interest, and overtook all in my way, which left me with no one to follow down the banks - but not to worry! Just sheet it in hard and hurtle along, aiming for the shallower bits... should've worn the drysuit really, but the weather was warm so no worries there. Gosh, those banks were fun - you were going so quick that all decisions re the avoiding of horrors had to be instantaneous, and mercifully I got all of them right! The top four were out of sight, so that made me 5th, with which I was right chuffed. Same wind for the third race, and more of the same - hell-for-leather hurtling down the banks, knowing that, at those speeds, hitting a hole or a decent lake, would result in damage to the yacht. Exquisite fun - and the yacht held together! Mark "SoC" Lloyd shot into a lake, badly twisted his forks and bent an axle in stopping in a couple of yacht lengths and provided a useful landmark for the rest of us and boy did we ever need one! The incoming tide added further excitement, as it crept up previously dry gulleys on the sailing line - the sploshes of the yachts ahead gave good warning, so one could veer inland to avoid the tide but that then put you in more uncharted territory with more village ponds to avoid. Some of the ponds were two or three feet deep, whereas others were only a few inches or so and could be hurtled through at will. SoC had been snapping at the heels of Roger Leah when he took his early bath, which also served to move me up a place to fifth again. And that was it as far as the racing went. Chris "BABs" Wright achieved a "wrightwash" again from Dave Green who had the yachtspeed but was out navigated by the wily old stoat himself. Roger was up there and Mark Sidey - but those four buggered off into the distance in each race, then there was a group with myself, Graham Lynch, SoC, Ray Thompson, Mike Hampton, Si Holder, Robert "Two Puddings" Green and maybe a couple of others representing the inconsistent brigade, who all had their moments of glory, and quite a few other moments they'd rather forget! Then it rained ! The 3s declined to race and eventually we lost the beach to standing water so Sailing Master Len gave up with the racing. It did stop raining late afternoon, but the wind had increased, so a few souls ventured out for some thrashing up and down the porridgey pan area. Somehow one doesn't notice the softness so much when there's a decent breeze in the sails and even m'Potty romped along - after Ian Dibdin had let the tyres down to a mere 5 psi! When I finished fooling around with it - it was amazing - with the tyres that soft you could bowl straight over some of the soft banks without slowing down - it was a full Force 6 with drifting sand etc and the little yacht loved it! I was last off the beach as ever, but I heard later that Mick Mitchell had emerged from the Fed's meeting, eyed up the breeze and spent a jolly half hour or so romping around in his IMAC Ludic! The "burn-it-yourself" barbecue was held in heavy rain, Jon Cookson mumbled a celebratory something and we all raised our glasses of fizz to the club being 50 years old, and Mrs Dibdin Senior who was brought in to witness it all, then we progressed to a hilarious prizegiving chaired by our esteemed chairman Bob "Two Puddings" Green, ably assisted by Val Andrews, who started off with the list from the previous year initially, then awarded the wrong trophies. In all it was a hoot and a half and people are prepared to pay good money to watch top quality entertainment like that normally! David Meek was over from the Emerald Isle to collect a couple of old c5s off Two Puddings, and thoroughly enjoyed ploughing through lakes, capsizing in the soft, and vice versa for variety's sake. Jan's yacht was beyond botchable repair which put the dampers on things a little, but all in all, a wonderful and exhilarating day. It threw it down with rain for most of the night and didn't bother stopping for the morning, so I packed up and p*ssed off home again but I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the locals went out to check out the banks later. Len Warren reckoned the banks were sailable, but the pan area certainly wasn't - it was awash after all the rain. Not the balmy August weather one might have expected, but that wind was wonderful. Cheers Andy   BACK TO THE LINCOLNSHIRE LYC OPENING PAGE and CONTENTS [  b a c k   t o   th e   t o p   o f   t h e   p a g e  ]