By Elaine Taylor

It’s normally the Irish who have great wakes (the ‘after funeral party’), but this time it was Les Holliday’s wake where we re-kindled old sailing friendships. My husband David (DT) is a long time sailing friend of the family and we flew across to Berkhamstead for Les’s funeral.  Late into the afternoon and after a few ‘jars’, David Holliday (David H) invited us to crew on his new Oyster 72 Kealoha 8 for the ARC 2006. Obviously we didn’t take long to accept the invitation and so began the voyage of a lifetime.

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Take a fabulous 72 foot Oyster, season with a great crew
Baste in a warm Caribbean sea for a couple of weeks, stirring gently at intervals
Whisk in a few great sails and rest mixture in idyllic surroundings
Throw in a couple of cricket matches, a few little adventures, the odd misadventure, a lot of laughs and copious amounts of rum punches (though this one should probably be omitted)
What do you get? An absolutely amazing holiday.

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This was the first regatta for K8, thirty Oysters in all were competing with great winds andfun sailing. K8 managed a good series of results with 2, 1, 5, 2 to finish 2nd overall, not bad for our first try.Roger, the resident oyster journalist, who sailed with us for the last race wrote:

Having finished in light air the previous day, it was with some surprise the Oyster fleet awoke on Sunday to a fresh breeze. The sou’wester was back, not with the same vengeance that had blown the fleet to Cabrera on Friday, but with a steady 15 plus knots at the start. At the morning roll call, many skippers opted for spinnakers and MPS with obvious relish. Thus far, it had been a white sails regatta.

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Soapy wash down day – full team effort and Tony made the tea. AS Rambo was outstanding and was awarded the St Ian Cross for outstanding soapy wash down bravery. He is now to be known as Very AS Rambo from now on. FM Rowntree took great care in cleaning the side of the boat and received a “Highly commended” from the skipper himself. It was then, with a huge sense of pride, that the crew tucked into Nia’s burgers aboard the cleanest vessel in DB.

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Day 6 – A sad day for the captain. After a day of illness the crew woke up in a sweat that the Captain was in no ability to perform his job. The decision was made to produce a new role for him, Assistant Cook Farnsworth. The motor boat again took to the seas with boards and skis. First up, demo queen Nia on the board. It looks easy. Second, Lady Rebecca, very close to the mono-ski demo. Thirdly, Tony displayed that the previous day was no fluke.

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Thursday’s Update:

Wednesday’s update was clearly written by someone from another planet. The boat is sparkling clean, Tony and AS Rambo are not in love but FM Rowntree is making a move!

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Croatian coast – October 2007

(Update : Wednesday)

Crew :

Ian (BOSS)
Nia (WELUVURFOOD)
Lady Rebecca (XYZC, MRICS, BDOE)
Tony (NOTALOT)
Able Seaman Rambo (ZERO)
First mate Rowntree (USELESS)
Captain Farnsworth (GB)

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