Great weekend! (copied from Facebook)

Many thanks Gernot Hirsinger for making https://mirrordiscussforum.org available to Mirror owners. I say this because I’ve just had a very good weekend’s sailing with Marc Perrault and his boat ‘Mussel’

I contacted Marc through the forum last year when he was looking for a crew and offered my services. Unfortunately I had to cancel but I did manage to say hello at another event in which he was participating.

I had an invite to join him last weekend for an event on the island of Noirmoutier and I agreed to the plan and I’m very glad now that I did.

We met on the Thursday at the campsite, Marc having driven down from Paris. Marc was very welcoming and has a little english. My french is very limited but we did managed to talk in ‘Franglais’

The weekend’s events started on the Friday, racing in the morning against a mixed fleet where we pulled off our first win. After a picnic lunch it was back on the water and we managed to achieve a second win. I think it made Marc’s day, it certainly did mine!

On the Saturday we had more racing in the morning and managed a third place.
In the afternoon we sailed across the bay as a flotilla, I’m sure there was a little competition at times!
In the evening we attended the Dinner and enjoyed good food, music and good company.

Sunday had promised rain but although less sun it was still good sailing weather. We sailed for a short time before beaching the boats for lunch.
There were a number of beautiful traditional boats beached with us but the Mirror attracted a lot of attention. Marc is used to this and has prepared a little history of the Mirror which he attaches to the boat, still lots of questions from the public for him though!

After lunch it was time for the parade.
Once all the big boats were afloat we sailed for the centre of Noirmoutier on Ile.
We had some excellent winds and the garmin registered our top speed as 6.2 knotts. We covered over 10 nautical miles and arrived at the entrance to the channel ahead of most of the other boats.
We waited until the large boats had entered the channel and then followed them in.
The banks of the channel were lined with spectators and Mussel had a lot of applause and ‘bravos’. She was one of the smallest boats but was as fast as most of the others.

It was an unforgettable weekend for me, perfect sailing weather a new sailing friend. My mirror needs a few modifications first, but I hope to attend with my boat at other events.