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Highlights:
Can't think of any really. Fairly uneventful racing - Oh, yes. Finishing an hour ahead of the others - and having Jackal trimmed perfectly just for once..
Downers:
Virtually no reaching legs. Long down winds with us having to sail about 30 miles more than the others to get the right angles.
Result:
First on IRC. Third on CN handicap.
Lessons Learnt:
Never underestimate an opponent's ability to wind you up long distance.
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Autumn Series Race 6. Friday 7th December
Wind 8 - 13 knots North Westerly - 30 knots under thunder showers.
'Rapscallion' isn't sailing today which is a shame. Mike's away in freezing Chicago, and I'll have nobody to heckle our performance, and nobody to wind up - at least not in the way we wind up the rappers. Shame. Still, best to put a brave face on things and get out there regardless.
Today it's a long race - a 22 miler - in breezy conditions, but nothing like last week, so we set off for the usual start transit of Pumphouse to West Pole and get ready for an 11:15 start. Crossing well, we head up to East Bouy before a reach to Pumphouse. We gain before the top mark and gain much further on the reach (which turns into a tight reach, so no chance of flying our black, slinky bitch), rounding Pumphouse Port and gybing to set spinnaker. We head down our first long run to South Pole, cursing the wind that just refuses to swing to the West to allow us better angles. We gybe, and gybe again, zig-zagging our way downwind, managing to put considerable distance between us and the rest of the fleet. Today it's 'TNT' (Graeme has decided to join us to "go cruising"), 'HelmWind' and 'Touch & Go' - a rather small 'fleet'. But I'm not taking any chances. When TNT goes cruising it usually means he wins on handicap.
We've got five aboard today, the usual crew including Bob, and Christina, my daughter, who's put in change of the vang control and hiking at the front (to make sure that the rest of us don't get wet).
Rounding South Pole we head up for a very long beat back to East Bouy, and adopt a short-tack policy of sailing up the middle of the course. This works well and we gain a huge amount on the leg. But we realise that there's a long, long way to go yet. We have to sail all the way back down to South Pole; all the way back up to East Bouy; across to Pumphouse; down again to South Pole and back to a finish at West Pole. It's a long way - three times down south and three very long beats back up.
And the wind angles elude our runs. Every time we have to gybe our zig-zag way south. Just one screamer of a reach from East Bouy to Pumphouse, and that's tight again, so no chance of an asymetrical reach.
But we really, really get in the groove. There's one point where, on a beat, we've got the sail trim so perfect that I can take my hands off the tiller. Jackal is sailing hereself, only thrown off slightly by the odd larger wave. Four hours later we finish at 15:24:08, 55 minutes up on the next boat. Debriefing and prizegiving eventually follows and we find we've come first on IRC but only 3rd on Club Number - with 'HelmWind' taking the win there, and 'TNT' taking a second - for cruising.
A couple of days later the results are circulated and Mike, still in Chicago, sends an email; "Ah well", he says, " The course must have been set to be all reaching legs for Jackal to finish so far ahead". Paul, our stand-in Race Secretary disagrees with this, and of course we certainly do. Ive never had to gybe so much. Just shows what you can do when you concentrate every minute for four hours.
Well, we've won the Autumn Series, and I have a sneaky feeling that we may just have taken first in the Annual Awards....
But I guess Mike wins again. It's not everyone that can successfully heckle a competitor from the other side of the planet.
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