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Highlights:
Winning - just for once. Drugging the opposition with gallons of Steinlager.. Gentle wind and an interesting course.
Downers:
Hamish needs a rigging diagram tatooed on his forehead. Spinnaker problems due to cats-cradle boat prep.
Result:
1st on PYR and 2nd on on PER.
Lessons Learnt:
Check the pre-race boat set up and rigging at least three times, before hoisting the bitch.
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Autumn Series Race 6. Friday 9th December
Wind 7-10 knots, North Westerly.
It's a thoroughly civilised briefing today, at 10:00. Mike's whiteboard is held aloft my me while he chatters on about tides, forecasts and all the other 'race secretary stuff', before we get to the focal point of the briefing: Gulf Cellar, our Steinlager sponsors, have donated gallons of liguid headache, so we dole out cases of Steinlager to the fleet in an effort to inspire intoxication and lack of seamanship, thus possibly winning. Well, let's face it - we need every advantage.
Instead of a split start, Division 2 boats TNT and Blue Chip opt to start with us at the incredibly gentlemanly hour of 11:30 and so we get out to the usual transit of West Pole - though this time its 'west of West Pole transiting through East Pole'. Our start is really quite good. 3 seconds late, but upwind of the fleet on port in clear air, as we accelerate to the top mark - the Green & White Spar.
Bob is still slaving over a simple thesus (why he can't write a simple 15,000 words in a weekend and get the whole thing over and done with, I really can't understand) and Andy has dissappeared overseas at short notice. But that's life. So we've got Sean. Ex Pandora. Intrepid, fearless, unflinching in the face of adversity.
At least he is until he discovers the fine art of dealing with the 'bitch' - our friendly spinnaker.
Around the top mark first, we set the spinnaker for a short broad reach to East Bouy, and halfway along the leg realise that Hamish has set the lines completely and utterly the wrong way round: A complete mess - The tack line is over the sheet; the lazy sheet is under the jib sheet. Impossible to gybe, and difficult to take down. Everything stuck. So we try to untangle this 'cats cradle' while rapidly approaching our gybe mark, but run out of time. Needless to say it all goes horribly wrong: Skipper vocal chord volume peaks rapidly; Neil learn's that things go pear-shaped very, very quickly - even at 4 miles an hour and Sean casually indicates that he's seen it all before. (Mind you, seeing his impressive antics on the water in Pandora, I can fully understand this).
We reach over to Pumphouse Port before bearing off for our run to Earth Station mark under spinnaker, now thankfully sorted out. The angle is good and we lay the mark, drawing ahead of the fleet. Hanging on to the bitch for the next leg by gybing we head for Shoal Spar, running a high angle to maintain boatspeed and hoping that the tide will set us to the mark. Proved right (just for once) we round the mark without any need for gybing or similarly dangerous manoevres, drop the spinnaker rather neatly and heel to our beat back past West Pole to a starboard rounding of Green and White Spar.
This upwind leg is really, really good fun. We eat acres off Rapscallion by finding a lift up the reef on the starboard side of the course, tacking towards the mark whenever possible, while others beat on starboard right over to the other side of the course to try to gain the layline from a distance.. I don't think this is a good move, and say so to the crew. Buddy Melges said in his book 'Sailing Smart', "Always tack to the mark. Sail towards it at all times". He's right - as long as you can efficiently tack the boat. Today, for a change, we seem to be able to.
We round the top mark literally miles ahead and set the Bitch for a short, repeat leg to East Bouy. Dropping the spinnaker and gybing round (good call to drop it rather than try to head back with it) we find the wind ahead of beam for a close reach to Pumphouse and a loose reach back to the finish transit of West Pole / Pumphouse, arriving at 13:44:19 - waaaaaay ahead of the others. We estimate Rapscallion and the others at over 25 minutes behind us on a two-hour race and smirk our way back to the Clubhouse.
Is this what they call CSF (Critical Sean Factor)? Or is TeamJackal just really good?
Must be CSF
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