Eat, drink, fall overboard

Sailing club class

There were a number of approaches to competing in the 21st Little Britain regatta at Cowes over the weekend. For example, some zealous skippers banned all excess weight, while others packed in the beer and crisps in case the boat became becalmed and the crew turned mutinous. The most novel was that adopted by Scott Grant of project manager GVA Second London Wall. In a masterly display of time-management, he brought his golf clubs so he could make a match on Sunday morning. The fact that his boat barely crawled over the finish line in the last race on Saturday was, of course, entirely unconnected.

Sir Steve recants

Olympic legend and Gleeds rep Sir Steve Redgrave got a little bit more than he bargained for on the pontoon at the Gleeds party on Friday night. All was well, with industry luminaries such as Jack Pringle joining the festivities and queuing to shake the great man’s hand. Unfortunately, the Gleeds team had not counted on the number of people wanting to visit him (and take advantage of the free bar), so it was not long before the pontoon started to sink and the rowing champion, who famously said he would never return to the water, was up to his ankles in the stuff.

Beer-belly flop

Perhaps attempting to make up for the previous evening, Gleeds’ black-clad hordes (“the ninjas”) hosted an impromptu singalong on the deck of their yacht. The boys regaled passers-by with a rather questionable repertoire of songs, but the singing came to an abrupt end after two people tried to step off the back of the yacht at the same time and both spectacularly missed the jetty. “Oh my God – the beer,” gurgled one as he hoisted himself up onto the pontoon to save his Becks, leaving his colleague to save himself. Sensei Richard Steer would have been proud.

Shingler’s list

Someone may wish to give Alan Shingler a list of dos and don’ts to take sailing. The senior partner at Sheppard Robson needs to remember that, unless he wants to end up in traction for a few months, he should only ever lower himself down a yacht’s hatch feet first – using both feet. “I had one bum cheek on the boat and one in the hatch,” he explained that evening, wincing at the memory of it all. “My coccyx is not in a good way.” I would like to give Alan the benefit of the doubt on this one (blame it on that rogue seventh wave or something), although come to think of it he also managed to break a nail on the same trip. Do you ever get the feeling someone’s trying to tell you something, Alan …?

Secret funder

I know it’s a tough time for banks, but the guys at HSBC have really got themselves in a muddle. My Cowes snout tells me that they were the secret sponsors behind the boat for Bankside, Land Securities’ mixed-use development on London’s South Bank. The firm pulled out all the stops – kitting out the crew in thousands of pounds’ worth of top-notch sailing gear – but refused to stamp its logo on the boat. Apparently, it would “look bad” given the economic climate. Ah well, at least it wasn’t Lehman Brothers I suppose.

A bit of a prang

The boat chartered by contractor Warings was having a fairly successful time of things, with a third and ninth place finish in the top-class zero. That was until Friday afternoon’s race. All had been going to plan, with the boat leading its class by “a good five minutes”, until the skipper was caught unawares by a sudden tack from rival boat Arco. Despite a valiant attempt to steer clear, the inevitable crunch followed and Warings’ race was over. Still, in true contractor style, the boat was patched up and raring to go the next morning. The fact that it was missing its bowsprit (see picture below) was a minor consideration.