UK STRAIGHTAWAYS 2003
(A
game of two halves!)
Yes, I say a game of two halves because the weather made for two completely different days............Saturday................. flat calm, Sunday............... blowing a right royal hooley! Unfortunately some people chose the wrong day! (like me) As for the venue..........well what can I say, a bit basic at the moment but it has the potential to develop into one of the best venues in the UK. Herrington Country Park is quite new and still under development and one of the lakes is dedicated to model boats only. It's just a pity that no model boaters were consulted about construction details because with a little forethought it could have been more user friendly from a boater's point of view. But let's not dwell on what might have been, as you will see from the picture below it has a huge expanse of water suitable for every type of model craft (except perhaps mini-boats!), in particular powerboats and yachts.
Sunday - early morning, not flat but good
enough
Control area, staffed and ready to roll
We were all ready to go on Sunday morning and someone said 'shall we hang on a while to see if the wind drops?' Well we waited.........and waited...........and waited and apart from a few less choppy minutes (and I do mean minutes) the wind got worse and worse until that pleasant control tent looked like this..............
Windblown, bleak and deserted control
Tent.......and just look at those waves!
However, despite the waves on Sunday many new records were set over the weekend and some brave(?) souls tried their best to deal with the ever increasing wind and waves. The problem being that the wind would subside a little for about 60 seconds and then pick up again so unless you were on the water and everyone was in place, it was too late. (unless of course you went on Saturday!) One thing is for certain, and that is a very big vote of thanks goes to Ian Williams and Allan Shillito for organising and running the event.
