The
series began on the 7th October, and with the sun shining, the lack of
wind meant (for some of us), a two hour drive, floating about for 3
hours then a 3 hour drive back – not the most exciting way to
spend a Sunday, but at least we were out on the water.
This weekend,
three Club members were sailing on the 707 ‘Censored’, and
hoped for some more wind! The forecast for the 14th October
didn’t look a lot better than the previous one and with Force
2’s forecast, we didn’t think that there would be any
racing – and we were nearly right! The official start time
of 10:00 saw the raising of the AP’s and that’s where they
stayed for some time.
Having scrubbed
the decks the previous week and running out of electrical tape, deck
jobs were few and far between, so after a couple of hours of dozing in
the sun, laughing (generally at each other) and trying to keep
ourselves amused, the breeze fortunately started to fill in to between
about 7 and 10 knots – the AP came down and we had our
course. This was just as well because I don’t think I could
have taken any more of the jokes that were being read from the Penguin
biscuit wrappers.
The first race
was a fairly short course, and with only one lap we knew we had to be
at the front of the fleet of 7 707’s that were still out (2 had
sailed back assuming that there would not be any racing). The
SB3’s ahead of us were off to a strangely perfect start and then
the Committee decided to set us off with the J80’s and the sports
boats, which was completely abnormal to our normal single class
starts.
We started at
the Committee boat end of the line and were following the J80 Bjorn
Slippy. The gun went and it was obvious to us that they were well
over the line but thought we were dead on it – then we heard the
committee state our sail number. We were over, so turned back and
started again – but still not in a bad position.
The beat up to
the first mark was fairly slow (~4.7 knots) and crew weight around the
boat was very important. At the mark, we set the pole then headed
for the wing mark with the kite ready for a hoist – threw it out
and it set perfectly. We managed to take 2 boats on the kite run,
dropped well, and then headed back up the course towards the finish
line. ‘Sparkle’ were quite a way in front of us, but
we wondered if we could catch ‘Feeling Rough’.
Watching for any slight increase in the wind across the water, we edged
our way to the finish line and took our third position.
Heading back to
the start for our second race, the breeze filled in a little more and
the Committee decided to keep us on the same course, but this time with
two laps. We started the race at the same end of the line as the
last, but this time judged it perfectly. With almost textbook
hoists and gybes, it looked like our Cowes week ‘practice’
had paid off. Our only snarl was when the uphaul popped out of
the cleat (as it is want to do!) and the pole headed skywards with our
bowman hanging onto it for dear life. At this point, the pit girl
(yes, that’s me) yanked on the up instead of the down – I
almost took him off the deck, not realising my own strength! A
second later, and blonde moment over, the pole was re-set and all was
ok – thank goodness it wasn’t that windy!
Again, we
concentrated on our angles and where the patches of wind were, and held
our position well, this time finishing in second position.
Overall, we are
in second place, and are looking forward to racing again this coming
Sunday, where at the moment the forecast is exactly the same as it was
for the previous two weekends. But we all know what long term
forecasts are like! See you out there Lutine Belle!
