So, buoying with confidence I invited a mate from my MBA course for a sail on the new boat.
The sun was out, the sky was blue and winds very light. I carefully rigged the boat and got her in to the water. With my carefully acquired knowledge of when to launch and retrieve (high tide of course!!!) everything was going well.
Although the wind was light the Zambezi Shark responded well........as we continued though she got increasingly sluggish. Was it me? my new-to-sailing crew member who was pulling the jib sheets to tight? ....were the winds just too light?
A dinghy from an earlier race was passing the other way and I proudly looked across from the helm....something was wrong! They weren't gasping in awe at my good looking boat and the speed of travel; it suddenly hit me........
...the bung was still attached to the dangly string on the rudder and we had been taking on water for the last 40 minutes.
After leaning over the transom and putting the bung back, sailing was no longer any fun. With all the water in the hull we were incredibly unstable. We rolled back.
Again - it was damn difficult getting the boat out, this time because it was so full of water. At the top of the slipway we waited 25minutes for the water to drain out before we could move to clean and park-up.
I was annoyed and will have to endure the bung joke for months to come.
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