Team Torbellino

Team Torbellino took to the water for a weekend of pre-season sail training last weekend.

Their objectives:

• To get to know the race boat-‘Newton’s Wonder’…no, really

• To prevent Jim from getting too bored

• To finalise dietary details for race

The first was largely achieved during the weekend. With the aid of carefully planned notes ‘Things we need to be able to do by June’ Team Torbellino attacked the challenge with their usual vigour. Saturday was spent on basic manoeuvres in light winds, while Sunday, in gustier conditions, was spent on mastery of the spinnaker, storm sails and predicted vs. achieved boat speeds. All went swimmingly apart from a slight obsession developing with predicted boat speeds, an obsession which may well lead to the prediction chart being ripped up and thrown overboard by the end of race day 1. All in all, the team were delighted with the boats performance and look forward to the delivery leg.

The second of our objectives was more difficult to achieve. Jim, having arrived 3 hours late proceeded to inform us that he was getting a little bored with the 3PYR. It was no longer a proper challenge to him. He was a lot more interested in bigger challenges such as the Tasmanian Three Peaks. He saw himself as an adventurer, an explorer, fearlessly facing unchartered waters in a constant quest for personal satisfaction. When it was suggested to him that he could perhaps make it more interesting by doing a faster Scafell he told us that he was fitter than ever before and predicted a record time with only transient deckchair use. He then spent the rest of the weekend finding ways to make things a little more interesting. He started by making advances on Phil during the first night while Phil was trying to sleep. This resulted in Phil rapidly vacating his bunk at the crack of dawn, embarking on a 10 mile walk to calm down and then throwing up his breakfast. His next game was to deliberately lock himself out of his cabin and then spend 2 hours finding novel methods of re-entry. Finally, he attempted, in several different ways, to rip the bow of the boat off with the spinnaker. Team Torbellino are grateful to have survived the weekend.

The final objective is best summarised:

Food winners:

Steak sandwiches

Pork Pies with Pickle

Pot Porridge-with the exception of Skipper who thinks ‘low GI’ is something to do with the US Military and when hungry will simply have another pork pie.

Ginger cake

Food Losers:

Tinned chilli con carne

Tinned tuna

Tinned frankfurters

Anything tinned

Plain pork pies

No Crisps

All in all a great start to the 3PYR training

*Appendum by Phil.

Only a doctor could pronounce confidently Tinned Chilli Con Carne 'bad' without even opening the can !

Doctor to Phil.

I also know jumping off a cliff would be bad...

Phil to Doctor

Depends on what is below. Tinned Chilli Con Carne may be one thing but you will eat your words when you have been seduced by the taste sensation that is canned steak and kidney pudding !!!