3rd flight for 18 foot skiff lake Geneva very light wind

This video is prettygobsmacking. We've seen International 14s and Moths do this before, but an 18 foor skiff is another proposition.

...and if we napalm that bit...

...and if we napalm that bit..., originally uploaded by ben.tudor.

plenty of cunning plans, plots and schemes hatched on sunday to redo the ending to BKB. keep your eyes peeled for more stuff in the coming months on that front.

Air resistance

Air resistance, originally uploaded by ben.tudor.

James is due for a haircut today. It'll be a bit surreal without his enormous barnet around to use as a handy windbreak. And all those little birds that have been nesting in there over the summer will have to find new roosts...

Squeezemonkey is back from France...

french snail 1, originally uploaded by squeezemonkey.

...with many lovely photographs. I especially like this snail. Some of the climbing pics are pretty daunting.

An end

At the pontoon, originally uploaded by ben.tudor.

Well, that's it for Swallow. She's up for sale now, and it looks like the crew has the winter off until the new X 35 arrives at the end of March next year.

A frustrating end to it all, as well. We placed well in the first two days of the 707 National Championships, and on Thursday you couldn't have seen us all happier. We grabbed a fourth on the first race, worked the Lee-on-Solent wind bend on the second, sailing up the right hand side of the course into the Northerly and gaining tons of ground on every beat.

The final race of the day saw us hit by another boat on the start line. We did our penatly turns and started a minute behind everyone else. It looked pretty bad. But we clawed up the fleet over the two laps, pipping the last two boats on the final beat to get a first. It doesn't get better than that.

So, what a shame that we spent the next six races down at the back of the fleet! we'd got 3rd overall by the halfway point, and dropped to ninth by the end of it, finishing with a snapped stanchion after an altercation at the last ever leeward mark.

The last sail on Swallow, and no more 707s for now. I'm not complaining - sailing bow on the 7-oh is a pain - literally. I've got a bunch of bruises and dinged a variety of limbs over the last four days in the process of foredecking through twelve races, and I'm tired. Roll on next March.