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After
getting up at 6
to obtain the new forecast and update my ‘wind and tide
model’, the weather was
not looking too good.
Very
light winds:
in
fact almost non-existent winds, and,
knowing what the ‘hole’ in Cherbourg is
like after being stuck in it many times before, I wasn’t sure
that
we’d get across the Channel let alone finish the race.
The
race start for us
(class 1), was 1720, but everyone had arrived by lunch, and with
victualling
complete, and Lutine ready to go, we decided to head over to Cowes to
see what
was happening as we currently had 5 knots of breeze – a
little
more than was
forecast. We hoisted the heavy weather jib for the gate, had
acknowledgement, and
then started to prepare for the race.
With
3 of our crew
missing this week, we were a little light, so some tasks needed to be
re-assigned.
By
the time we started,
there was about 15 knots (true) of breeze, but it was a beautiful
evening with
flat water, so after the start gun, we hoisted the Lloyd’s
kite
and headed off
towards the forts – with a few knots of tide under us we were
heading towards
the forts at about 8.5 knots.
Once
we
got into our groove, we found that our boat speed picked up reasonably
well.
With
all on board concentrating
hard, we
managed to overtake ‘Starchaser, a Swan 41, and, eventually
(once
past the
forts), my skipper for the 2007 Fastnet, Michael Hook on ‘Hot
Stuff’, a 40.7 as
we found a patch of breeze.
As
the sun dropped, we
managed to find a patch of wind and took off! It
was an amazing sight at
about 2200 when we briefly overtook ‘Erivale’
a class zero boat!
It
was soon after
this that the madness set in – someone mentioned the
wonderful
‘red sky at
night’, which was shortly followed by ‘shepherds
delight’.....which was then
followed by a crew member, who will remain nameless, becoming Mushroom
Bin
Laden – red tea towel with North Sails sail tie makes for a
wonderful Shepherds
head scarf!
At
2240, we rounded
the Owers light mark, and headed off towards Cherbourg.
This
wasn’t our best mark rounding. We
had a
few problems gybing the kite as there just wasn’t enough wind
to
float it round
the forestay, so there was a bit of a wrap, but with tide taking us
away from
the mark, we lost a little bit of time. Dropping
the kite to set off
to Cherbourg, with an amazingly clear night and the
fleet
bunched together, only spotted by their navigation lights.
So,
at 2300, we
dropped into the watch system:
as
I
wandered down below to put my final mark on the chart until next watch,
we were
trucking along quite nicely at about 7 knots on 10 knots of breeze. On
my return onto deck at 0300, it was a
different story.
Fog. The
fog became more and more
dense.
The
radar showed that there were
quite a few
boats about (some closer than you’d really like), and the
wind
dropped to about
6 knots.
Constant
radar checking as well
as trying to keep the boat moving in the direction that would help us
later
with the tidal changes, we edged closer to Cherbourg.
Daylight
came at about 0330,
but it was a
bizarre foggy light.
At
one point,
visibility
was down to about 50m.
Not
nice.
The
fog started to
clear at the end of our watch, and with the French coastline in sight,
the wind
dropped – we were in the Cherbourg hole. And
this is where we
drifted, sometimes backwards, for the next 8 hours.
We
tried everything –
at one point there was
even the call to drop the kedge – really? In
65 feet of water?
Then
I
checked the charts – and this wasn’t an option
– we
were on top of an
explosives dumping ground!
By
1400 we
still had 17 miles to go, as we waited for the tide to change. Keeping
us amused were a small pod of
dolphins who were swimming around us.
Then
at about 1500,
the call of ‘I see wind’ was nothing short of a
blessing!
We
were moving!
With
everyone on the leeward rail, we were
moving forwards.
A
few minutes later,
Simon spotted something in the water – was it a
seal’s fin?
A
baby dolphin again?
No
– it was a Sunfish!
Brilliant!
With
the time to Cherbourg now only about 3 hours, crew morale
lifted.
We
kept Lutine moving and came
into the finish at 1812, with at least 20 boats still behind us. A
quick chat with the RORC finish boat, we
headed
straight out of the Easterly entrance of the harbour to make our way
home.
An
updated forecast showed that we
were in
for a drift back if we sailed, so unfortunately we had to motor.
Supper
eaten, we were
back into the watch system.
It
was a
very clear and very still night when I crashed out.
At
0100, I returned on deck
to find that we
had about 17 miles remaining, and we could see the radio mast in the
centre of
the Isle of Wight, but bizarrely, couldn’t see ST
Katherines.
This
could mean only one
thing.
Fog.
Argh! Not
fair!
At
least this time there
wasn’t too much traffic. 2
hours
later, and it had cleared a little;
enough to be able to see the 4 large car carriers moored off of the Portsmouth, with
the harbour entrance only coming into
view with about 500 meters to go!
Well,
it was certainly
a few days of extreme weather, but great experience for the crew.
So
how did we do?
Overall,
we obtained a 70th
position, beating a Swan 41 and a Swan 42. Not
at all bad!
Liz
Lotz
LlYC
Vice Commodore
Fastnet 2009 Navigator and Tactician
http://www.rorc.org/raceresults/2009/morgancuprace/msov06.html
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