Streaker Ramblings - Elford Numbum - Race 6 - 12th Feb 2012

An e-mail late Saturday from Kay Young, the RO for the Numbum series, set the scene telling us that she had visited Piddinghoe during the day and it was frozen solid. We forwarded the message to a few others only to hear later that there was a video on the NSSC Face book page by Michael Veale suggesting that there was a fair bit of melting and that racing might be possible. I cannot verify what was shown as I am not a Facebook member and was therefore unable to view it myself.
Just to be sure we set off at 9.00 this morning under grey skies – just the tiniest hint of a bit of blue – with barely a breath of wind and the odd spot of rain. By the time we got to Piddinghoe it was snowing, even laying in the lane leading to the village which was hardly surprising as the temperature (outside) recorded by the car’s instruments was minus 2 degrees C. As soon as I entered the pond berthing area it was plain to see that the ice was giving the water 100% cover and after a stab or two, with a fence post adjacent to the main Jetty, a bit of ice was removed. The attached photo, with £1 coin adjacent for scale, shows that it was a good 2 inches thick and that Ice Breaking with the safety boat would have been impossible.

A week of constantly low temperature during the day time and severely low ones at night ensured last weekend’s freeze was even more pronounced this week. Rain is forecast in the coming week and a slow rise in temperature so with luck we will be able to go afloat next Sunday 19th Feb.
Alan.S 1700