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Highlights:
Long offshore racing is good fun. Getting our sail trim really well worked out. A perfect slot, thanks to Buddy Melges and a book he wrote.
Downers:
Andy now has bright shiny nylon spray trousers as well. And rubber diving booties! Not being able to carry our spinnaker as we are a man short. See full story.
Result:
4th on PYR and on Personal. Without the bitch. See full story.
Lessons Learnt:
Ban Hamish from drinking the night before a race. If that fails, line up proper reserves.
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Trifler sails right round the offshore course and then can't get into the Marina again, winning 'Duffer Prize' for the race.
Organised Kaos, running her spinnaker with both sheets attached this time.
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2nd Winter Series - Long Offshore. Friday 21st January
Wind 13 - 18 knots, becoming 18-23 at times. North westerly.
A wedding function last night compounded by an alarm clock that completely fails in its simple task, sees me miss the 09:00 briefing entirely, though Andy and Jim are there. Hamish is the real concern though as I discover he's been up literally all night binge drinking. Over the phone he sounds a little strange, tired and dazed, but after severe verbal abuse and reminder of his responsibilities as a member of TeamJackal he arrives down at the dock, just as we're ready to leave. But completely drunk with stupid eyes - a wretched liability. So I order him off the boat to the safety of a beachlounger to 'sleep it off'. And off we set for a long offshore with only three aboard. Bloody great.
To think; I postponed Charlie Hill, a really keen new recruit, and international laser sailor to boot, and I didn't demand that Freddy (our normal reservist) joins us aboard as he was sailing Aquilla with family. So we're just three: Too few by one (Hamish) to fly the Bitch.
We motor out through the cut in the reef; out to where the bulk carriers, tankers, coastguard cutters and US service patrols all jostle for sea-room in a tight shipping lane. Our main is already up (and I am NOT going to tell anyone about the complete stuff-up we have getting out of the marina, with the wind catching our main driving us downwind into about six pontoons in a row before we manage to extricate ourselves from tangled twisted pulpits...) so we unfurl the jib and start reaching down the start transit. The wind favours a port start so we time a reach back, to start on the line high with a lay to the first mark. We're not quite on time, but not late either really and quickly overhaul Kaos to reach the top mark first, round this and head down to South Shoal Beacon. Coming off the wind, we curse Hamish as we slowly wallow down course. We have to sail angles to keep boatspeed and pressure, but the wind is coming up in good solid gusts so we figure we're probably safer without the bitch anyway, especially when we see Blue Chip do one of the most dramatic howling broaches ever; and witness Kaos' unusual spinnaker techniques - no sheets and half a jib in the water as well.
Following is a long beat up to GIIC3 bouy. We start to get in the groove. Sail trim is good; our slot is nearly perfect and I start steering for the waves, scalloping our way upwind. We tack to starboard favouring a middle course beat while the others stand on to port. At the mark we find we've taken a big lead on them, but again we have to round this for a down-wind to MIna Salman Approach Beacon - and curse Hamish again. This repeats with another beat up to the top mark, but this time the wind has come up a good deal and the waves are much bigger, so we sail to the edge of the course before tacking to the mark. Again we gain, and again we bear off downwind - cursing Hamish once more as we slow.
Catching up on the division 2 boats now we come to our third 'uphill' and in the final part of the beat catch up with TNT who's on starboard and crosses just ahead of us. I realise we're in for some fun at the mark, play it safe on the layline and come into it on Starboard, forcing TNT (on Port) to tack off to avoid us right at the mark. Nice one!
More Hamish-related curses as we bear off. With Bitch we would have been at hull speed - with hum. Without it we're too slow - gaining on beats and only just holding our own sailing downwind angles. On the run we witness an incredibly stylish triple broach by Pandora, rounding up in a sequence of absolute howlers. Pity we don't have a camera! At the downwind mark we enjoy a fast reach across to South Shoal Beacon, round this for the final beat to Mina Salman Approach, where we meet Blue Chip right at the mark. She's on the run down and we slam gybe around the mark just on the inside of her with a couple of feet to spare and head for the finish transit on a time of 14:23:15.
All in all, we get into the groove after the first couple of legs of the race, and really got our trim sorted, achieving very good windward boat speed. Others reefed today, but we didn't feel the need. Getting the slot right really makes a difference: The rig gets stable, not overpowered and there's not too much heeling force, even in gusts. Pity about that bowman of ours though. Though he did fall asleep on a sunlounger, with his shirt off, and now has fairly impressive sunburn. Serves him right.
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