The One They Have All Been Waiting For

They arrived with more than a little fanfare, from north and south, and proceeded to demonstrate their mastery of their sport. We were expecting more of the usual: short burst of activity; disappearing act….but no, the world champions have obviously had their pride tweaked by performances elsewhere.

As we ambled up to the bow, they approached from port and starboard to create a supremely aligned formation exhibiting pace, power and precision stretching to left and right with nary a nose out of line. This was their opening exercise, and one they had honed to perfection over years of practice leading up to the performance of a lifetime. They held this position for just enough time to let the judges recognise that it was no fluke, and then broke away to perform their individual, group and team specialities.

There were the duos, twisting and diving in complete harmony, taking it in turns to grandstand under the bow; there were the trios, where the middle performer- always the middle performer - would turn turtle and swim upside down without losing an inch to her flankers; there were the foursomes in diamond formation; and then there were the freestyle groups who would take it in turns to approach from one side then the other, flipping and spinning, diving and tumbling, turning and twisting (we believe the health and safety police have stopped the somersaults for being too hazardous for the spectators’ hearts).

The team leader had a spectacular piece de resistance, with a half pike out of the water, then slapping her tail down as she re-entered her natural domain. We know she was the leader, because she seemed to take the lead in the group events, and she spoke for the team on the podium at the end (OK, I made that last bit up).

The whole routine lasted exactly 30 minutes; they had it down to the nth degree, and turned their heads to the audience expecting confirmation of their gold. There was a momentary pause, whilst the judges conferred. The problem was that there had been what appeared to be a fundamental flaw in the first and most critical element: the formation. Some blamed the dope, and in their non-technical way the audience assumed it was simply that one of them could not count (no fingers, see): there had been 12 team members whose alignment, grace and timing was worthy of the highest accolade except for the basic error: there had been 5 performers on the port bow but 7 on the starboard!

In the modern way, where performers and team captains get the opportunity to question a result, the judges listened carefully to her words:

“You do not fully understand our art, sirs, she said. We are the Asymmetric Synchronised Swimming Team!”

….and it all fell into place. It was a deliberate ploy to gain the full attention of the audience, and it had worked perfectly.  There was no option but to award the gold their bold and innovative performance had deserved. Moreover, this team had redrawn the boundaries of their sport forever.

The Asymmetric Synchronised Team Approaches(Starboard)  for Their Opening Routine

(Daphne broke away to take up the Port Wing for their 7/5 Ground-breaking Formation)

Trio Work: Wilma – in the centre – is about to go for her roll and upside down swim

Progress Without Patience

This morning, we nudged under the 300 miles-to-go-mark, after a mixture of sailing and motoring for the last 24 hours. The High is in the ascendant, and dominating our weather, so for most of the time we have had winds averaging well under 10 knots from due west (in sailing terminology, up the chuff): when they have been over this, and slightly off our port beam, we have managed to make reasonable progress under sail; when they have been less than this and directly up the chuff, we have just wallowed so our engine “Dougie” (with the T) has done the business.

At least we have not been idle, with the Chinese laundry lady taking over the work room and the cockpit with her washing and drying. It is just as well that the only passing traffic has been large commercial vessels some distance off; otherwise we would have been reported to the Admiralty for running an untidy ship-of-the line.

With any luck, we will only have to endure another couple of nights offshore, and should make landfall sometime on Tuesday. Ali is voting for a couple of idyllic days at a peaceful anchorage, sleeping and swimming, to recharge her batteries….. I am not going to argue with that if the weather allows.

Late Breaking News!

It has come to the attention of the features editor that there have been some complaints about the quality of the coverage of the event described above.

The first came from the BBC, who said that the camera work was sub-standard, and they were not to blame for the lack of a live feed or the quality of the frames. There was some limited acceptance of the issue by the organisers, but they pointed out the exceptional bravery of the sole untrained camera man who dangled from the bow to capture the breath-taking images. The complaint was therefore rejected.

The second complaint came from closer to home, when someone suggested that the hyperbolic language used in the commentary was clearly over the top and biased, and thus unfair to the others competing. The editor’s response was quite simple: this was the home team, performing in their own territory, and therefore some partiality was to be expected. The malcontent exited left, grumbling that Murray beating Federer might have made better viewing for some.   

Direct from the arena….

Watergaw

(The sub editor would like to reassure readers at home that his medication has been upped now.  Subsequent entries may not be quite so fanciful.)