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Highlights:
Kaos really does a brilliant job of losing control of their spinnaker. When they do, they really, really lose it in style.
Downers:
Lack of vocal chord volume. A rather quiet skipper, though the crew didn't seem to mind too much.
Result:
Third on PYR and 2nd on Personal.
Lessons Learnt:
None today. It was just tooooo quiet.
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Spring Series Race 5. Friday 2nd June
Wind 10-15 knots, North Easterly.
A medium inshore awaits us today, and by all accounts the wind is perfect! So we meet down at the Club for a 10:00 briefing with a split start - Division 2 boats are away at 11:00 while we're off at 11:15. Good, gives us something to chase for a while... Today I'm blessed with a full, regular crew. Andy, for once isn't working, plotting or planning. Hamish, while late to arrive, isn't still drunk or hungover and Jim, well it seems he's the reliable one. Turns up when he says he will. So things are looking up.
And the course is a beauty! Long downwind legs, with a 130 degree wind angle; good reaches. Our start is a transit of Pumphouse to West Pole, and we start on starboard right on the nail, upwind of most of the fleet in a good controllining position. Aquilla and Kaos get tangled up on the line, allowinmg us to cruise past upwind. TNT tacks off to port quickly but we favour the other side of the course, carrying on on starboard before tacking up the middle, to find ourselves first to round the windward mark by quite a way. Rounding to Starboard we reach across to East Bouy and gybe around to set up for a run south to Earth Station. We delay launching the bitch as the angle is too tight until we clear the reef, then bear off downwind and launch. Smooth, controlled and effortless. What's gone wrong? We should be cursing, swearing, wrapping the thing into an hourglass...
Looking back we are delighted by a quite extraordinary floorshow. It's Kaos, doing everything she can to completely stuff up a spinnaker launch, rounding up to a reach trailing her kite by halyard only, fluttering astern half in the water. Lovely. We wonder about the language on board and cover our ears from several hundred yards in front, just in case....
We're flying, with hull hum, almost planing - if the wind would just come up a couple of knots.... Rounding Earth Station mark to Port, having overtaken the division 2 boats (except that dratted Seal, TNT) we reach across to Shoal Spar, out by the reef and turn to beat back to Pumphouse Port, where we overhaul the Seal and find ourselves in very flukey wind, shifting and gusting from several directions.
We round to Starboard, change the spinnaker lines (OK, yes we should have had that done earlier) and raise the bitch for a run to Shoal Spar. We're well ahead of the rest of the fleet by now, and continuing to accelerate. Around Shoal Spar mark and another reach to Earth Station sees us on the final beat to the finish transit of Pumphouse / West Pole. An uneventful race, but a good one. We sail consistently, not brilliant, but no real mistakes either and finish on 13:22:31 wondering if we've come 4th again. But it's not to be. We find at debrief that we're third on PYR and second on Personal. Not too squalid.
It's been a quiet race though. The crew are feeling sympathetic to me, having just been very ill, and I'm still not my normal loud, assertive self. Let's face it, you can't shout at crew properly when you've lost your voice. Croaks just don't carry the same degree of utmost authority.
But it hasn't all been dull. Seems that Yella Belly lost a crew member overboard - Peter - a large chap, who managed to take the stanchions with him, ripping them from the deck and delaminating half the transom at the same time, thus forcing them to retire. Naturally he wins the Duffers' Prize of the Day at debrief, causing much mirth and humour.
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