Threesome

The Mach 2 had run away to Spain, Carbon Footprint was feeling sad and lonely. She was sitting all by herself in the dinghy park in her pajamas... eating ice cream straight from the tub... playing Gloria Gaynor on repeat... It is into sad moments such as this that bizarre twists of fate have a habit of occurring, and so it was that an offer that she could not refuse miraculously appeared. An offer so exciting that it did not feature in her wildest dreams as surely there is no way it could happen... Her heart skipped a beat, could it be real? Could he really mean her? Did he know how she had been secretly admiring him from afar? What could have set her heart alight like this? Was it the offer of dinner with Brad Pitt? (He is coming to the South West to film some Cornish zombies after all). No, far more exciting, she was going out with not one but two handsome young men.

The Swiss foiling team who, (so narrowly), beat Carbon Footprint in speed week have kept apace with sailing design trends and have put a wing on their foiler, Mirabaud LX. They were bringing it to Cowes week and they had invited yours truly onboard! That is definitely an offer a girl could not refuse.

So it was that I made the trip over to Cowes and found myself sailing with not one but two handsome, if not slightly crazy, Swiss gentleman. For those of you not familiar with Mirabaud LX picture this; 10m of 3 man, spaceframe, wing sailing, foiling awesomeness. It is as though designer Thomas Jundt has taken all the best bits of sailing technology and put them together in one extreme machine and the result is this:

Check out www.mirabaudlx.com for all the technical details.

I climbed onboard in the clothes I had just stepped off the ferry in, there was no time to change and the boys said it was fine, I wouldn’t get wet - really?! JP handed me the mainsheet, it appeared my job was trimming the wing, just like the mainsheet on the Moth apparently. Should I just take this moment to point out that I have now sailed more wing sailed boats than most of the America’s cup sailors - if you want any pointers boys... It was as much fun as I had dreamt and more! You get two gentlemen to help you and Mirabaud LX is surprisingly stable, foiling along the Solent through chop that would have upset many a Moth, without even spilling the beers kindly provided by the sponsors. That said we did manage to capsize, oops. As the boys promised, even a little excursion to the dagger board did not involve getting wet, how very civilised. The press briefing was as much showboating as possible - that is my kind of sailing. Buzzing the Royal Yacht Squadron during Cowes week is definitely showboating that Carbon Footprint would approve of!

It was a great day with the perfect conditions for wing foiling, thanks so much to Thomas, Antoine and Eric for letting me play with their very cool toy and ensuring I kept my hair dry!

Now it’s just the offer of dinner from the lovely Brad that Carbon Footprint has to dream about!