|
Highlights:
Celebrity crew and celebrity female crew both great sailors. So why did we come last?
Downers:
No wind. No boatspeed. No distance on the others. Weed, lots of it.
Result:
Totally Last and Fourth yet again.
Lessons Learnt:
Still none at all.
|
|
....... |
2nd and 3rd Spring Series - Short Inshores. Friday 15th April
Wind 5-8 knots, South easterly, becoming 8 - 138 knots later.
Once again, they havn't a clue about the forecast. So we're racing blind, not really knowing what's going to happen (well, we do it this way most days). Jim and Andy are both off today so Ken joins us again - and brings along Lydia - a loud, but extremely competent crewmember, used to sailing on Pandora, rather than a sophisticated, racing J80.
First race is at 10:00 with a transit start from Al Bander Port Poles, beating south in a virtually non-existent wind. We start in clear air down from the favoured end of the line; a tactic that we learn to regret well before we even approach the first mark. We get caught in bad air from other boats to windward and with light airs of less than 3 knots can't break through, so we round the first mark in a tangle of other boats. The wind is shifting and dying horribly. We set the bitch but with hardly enough air to keep from drooping limply into the water we find ourselves sailing such high angles that we're not getting any closer to the downwind mark. But we struggle along nonetheless, limping our way into first place on the water.
After an hour and a half we crawl out in front with a dying breeze and inch our way to the finish transit. The wind heads us, so we stand on desperately trying to get a lay on the mark to tack. When we finally do we find that the breeze has shifted to favour all the other boats in the fleet - so much so that they catch us at the finish and we only just cross first, by mere seconds.
A disaster. We should be at least 20 minutes ahead of the others, so we're not surprised to come last, only narrowly missing the 'Duffer Prize' of the day.
The second race is far better. After a quick lunch we're out again for another short course and this time have a great start, thanks to Ken, hitting the line at full speed, in clear air, and make the first mark well ahead. We continue to accelerate but the wind is still flukey, without giving us pressure in the spinnaker, so again we sail angles downwind, only holding our own on the others who are conventionally rigged and heading straight for the downwind mark.
But it's not all bad: Lydia knows her stuff, hauling in the bitch; running out the pole; trimming the jib and more without the need for constant supervision. Trouble is she's so loud - and insists on giving her skipper of today much verbal abuse thus egging-on the others, so like sheep at sea, they join in. This is too much for me and causes lapses in helming concentration. But I blame myself: If you don't keep a crew occupied and working hard, they'll chit-chat, drink beer and then criticise the skipper! Personally, I'm rather proud of my scalloped wake, but it's still a hard, thankless task being in command. The responsibility and accountability rests heavy on days like these.
We finish ahead as usual but figure it's not enough over Kaos, and are somewhat surprised to pick up our usual placing of 4th on PYR as we thought we had performed better reletively. This handicap thing is a bloody nuisance really. I think we should scrap it completely.
|
