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Highlights:
Dolphins all around. Taking Yella Belly's wind good and proper on a downhill. Managing to run the bitch shorthanded, even though a bit slow on hoists and drops.
Downers:
Weed. boredom! More weed.
Result:
DNF. I repeat, this is not going to be a Winter Series of fine results for us....
Lessons Learnt:
Realise that J80s that don't move properly under a fully set spinnaker (when sail trim is obviously not at fault) may very well be towing half an ocean worth of seaweed around. Stop, back the sails, drift back, thus realeasing the soggy mess. Then start sailing, only losing 2 minutes rather than an hour and a half. Once sailing again, alter course to avoid weed patches....
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Race 5 Winter Series. Long Inshore. Friday 5th March
Wind 3-8 North East becoming 8-15 easterly at times throughout the day.
The usual 09:30 briefing and we get out on the water for a 11:00 am start between a start boat this time and West Pole. Another slightly late start, but we're on Starboard at good boat speed, luffing up the others and emerge in second place. Today is going to be good for us - its a long course, right down to South Pole and a race distance of some 16 miles, in very light winds. We're going to clean up here...
But Jackal just won't move. It's like we're glued to the sea. A sea with flat calm, glassy ripples broken only by the sharp vent of dolphins and thirty-seven million lumps of thickly matted seaweed per square half mile (a fact that escapes us until later). The start wasn't too bad, but now we are approaching the top mark, East Bouy, and only just holding off Yella Belly.
We're short-handed: Hamish, our bowman is sick so we have to manage without him. As a result our spinnaker set is slow, the wind all wrong and we gybe to starboard and head out from the layline, to get away from Yella Belly and attempt a better reaching angle for our asymetrical, losing time. Gybing again to run to the mark we gain and catch up to Yella Belly although well down the course. At less than half a boatlength from her we swerve upwind of her stern to take upwind position and ruin her wind (nice feeling), gliding past to the mark a hundred yards ahead. But, despite feeling really nice, all in vain. We drop the bitch messily (not our fault - where's Hamish?) and end up starting the beat back 100 yards behind her again. And it takes an age to catch up again - far too long.
Jackal still doesn't want to move properly. We're adjusting, trimming, doing everything we can think of but the speed doesn't increase. It doesn't feel like weed... more like the keelbolts are coming undone. She won't tack properly, almost stalling through the wind.
Up at the top mark again finally, we are overtaken by several boats, and lumber our way downwind again to find that Pandora, having also overtaken us, is pulling away from us (heavier boat, smaller spinnaker). So we decide to retire as something is badly wrong. Even our on-water rig tensioning hasn't worked. We motor sadly back to the clubhouse, and on berthing a vast, huge, metre-cubed lump of seaweed detatches itself from our keel and floats to the surface displaying a large v-shaped indent in its mass. No wonder we couldn't get past 2.5 knots.
This is far more painful than it would have been if Jackal had actually had major structural problems - at least there is some preservation of pride to be had in major equipment failure.
Another disaster. Still, the handicap will be more favourable and maybe everyone will think we've been sailing strategically this year for just that reason..... But I don't think so! It's not just the weed. Jackal is out of trim, or it's me, or the crew. But I don't think its the human factor alone, so I'm going to get down to the club and get stuck in to some major maintenance to get this boat back in shape. I'll feel better knowing that all the imagined boat problems have been sorted!
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