2007 Race Reports

Race 1 - Christchuch Bay Race

Report from Electron,Class 5

Considering the previous nights celebrations, the crew of Electron were cheerful and ready bright and early. Tug, as always, took on the mantle of "galley bitch" and prepared coffee and food. With the main hoisted in the Hamble River, Electron shot off to the start line to arrive indecently early. Jim was none too happy with this commenting only that he could have had another half hour in bed! Skip breathed a sigh of relief as the red flag was hoisted from the JOG hut commenting: "It would be bloody horrible out that end today" and waited patiently for the course to be called. "Lymington Bank, where exactly is it?" was not a confidence making remark from the navigator and the crew just hunkered down for the pre start.

The start was slow for Electron and the kite hoist even slower. All the boats seemed to wait a while for the hoist which was prudent under the circumstances. Tai Pan got a good start and stayed in front of Electron all around the course. Electron could never quite catch them. Meanwhile, Whistler and Electron slugged it out. One getting a better lift off a gust would creep in front, only for the same thing to happen to the other. Skip looked across at Whistler and exclaimed: "How many crew has Mark got? Looks like he has a whole reserve team on board!"

Rounding Lymington Bank the shock of beating hit everyone full in the face. The wind was very gusty but manageable with No.3 and 1 reef. Still a harsh start for the first race of the season!

West Lepe was an interesting approach, with the full effect of a near equinoctial spring tide concentrating the mind to make sure it could be done in one tack. Whistler, still with Electron at this point was low on the mark and had to throw in a tack and seemed to stand still in the tide as Electron shot around the mark.

Looking at the distance to the next mark, SOG and the knackered crew Skip discussed the kite with Jim (the Yoda of yachting) and it was unanimously decided to "sod it" and "stuff the kite" as by the time the crew got it up it would be time to take it down again. You can tell Electron's crew are not dedicated around the cans racers!!

Rounding Hampstead Ledge for the beat home the tide just never seemed to get any lighter. The breeze got stronger with one gust hitting 37 knots. It was mostly sub 30 knots and in the mid 20's. A second reef was shoved in and the boat settled down to a rock hopping, Gurnard Ledge missing beat to the finish. One little incident on the beat back was the inflatable Dan Buoy fell off into the drink. As a huge red "dickey" hissed and puffed to a very taught erection Skip grabbed it, looked surprised and said: "I'm surprised that worked" much to the consternation of the crew.

A lot of short tacking had to be done to stay out of the tide and both Jim and Skip, sharing the helm and being "mature" in years decided to ease the helms burden. They developed the "JimSkip double helm tack". Primarily, what this entailed was the "lazy" helm (the one not helming at the time) went to leeward just before the tack. As the tack is called the active helm chucks the tiller extension to the lazy helm who completes the manoeuvre. It worked a peach!!

It was a decent result for the first outing with conditions that favoured the bigger boats. Well done to everybody who took part and well done to the Race Officers for making exactly the right decision for the course. It was, in the end, a very good days sailing.

Report from Tearaway, Class 4.

A touch of Déjà vu. Seems like the weather Gods like it to be windy for this race! We had the inevitable early start and arrived at the start line with plenty of time to declare and welcomed the red flag. What a good call not taking us out of the Solent. We would probably still be trying to get back against the tide!

We decided to put a reef in the main because we find things more controllable in blustery conditions. We set the heavy spinnaker and did our best to hang on to the J105's. The downwind ride was exciting with up to 12 knots but we arrived at Lymington bank a little behind the J's but well ahead of everyone else. A good beat against the tide, staying well inshore, saw us well ahead but looking back, thought one or two had gone in too far and had found the bottom. Not so. The radio crackled into life with the almost unheard JOG word "protest". Not the last of the day either. Sorry to lose some of the competition so early.

On the way across to Hampstead Ledge, once again spinnaker pulling hard, we found a long split in the jib and had to change it for the #4. Never mind. We rounded the mark and headed inshore with just the main while the wet end of the boat finished setting it. Didn,t lose too much ground but Serendip came through, probably wondering why we were such wimps with a tiny headsail.

Thought the boats going inside Gurnard where a lot braver than us and went the long way round but then split the main from luff to reef pennant. The beat back to the finish was painful in the extreme as we gave away a commanding lead to boats with a complete sail wardrobe. Still, that's racing! Always next week to try again. Just the cost of repairs to worry about.

Thanks to the race officers from all of us on Tearaway for the first race of the year.

Our season began the weekend before this race with a true Whistler-style intensive training weekend - we nosed out of Portsmouth, decided it looked windy, turned back and went to the pub. As the week progressed and the forecast looked more ominous, it began to look like we should have gone out and practiced!

Report from Whistler, Class 5

Also ominous was the Skipper's deteriorating physical condition; he was already nursing persistent tennis elbow on his right arm (don't ask why!) when on Friday he leapt from deck to pontoon with all the grace of a badly packed sail bag and sprained his left ankle. After strapping the ballooning limb with a few metres of bandage a few problems were immediately obvious -
1. His slow, hobbling gait would make him late to the pub, missing valuable drinking time
2. In order to arrive back at the boat at a sensible time he would have to leave equally early, missing yet more pub time
3. His boot might not fit over the bandages

As ever the crew were full of good ideas - the most inventive of which was strapping a chair to the transom and letting the Skipper perch there, like Peter Harrison on TeamGBR…

On Saturday morning the injury-enforced reduction in drinking time left the Skipper feeling better than some members of the crew, and judicious use of a batten prodder had eased the boot onto the foot (hopefully it will be removed before Cherbourg!) We joined the parade up and down before the start and, although not quick off the line, were reasonably placed behind Tai Pan and alongside Electron. Kites were popped after a few minutes and fun was had surfing down waves, eking out a few metres and then losing them as the three 31.7s headed the fleet down the Solent. An interesting but prolonged discussion between the Skipper and the "Swami of Sailing" about how to work the GPS allowed Electron to creep ahead - a position they held as we rounded Lymington Bank. A good rounding and quick settle into the beat put us back in second and we traded tacks up the mainland shore.

One advantage of the Skipper's incapacity was a smooth slow tack, so he could ease the boat upright, hop onto his good leg across the cockpit using the mainsheet trimmer and boom for support and then sit down before getting back on the wind!

With nothing up our sleeves as we bore off slightly for West Lepe, hitting the deeper, faster flowing water, we were less than impressed with the antics of a cruising Bavaria who seemed to enjoy weaving around sitting right in our air, knocking us time and time again. We watched Tai Pan round the mark and then realised that we couldn't make it and threw in another tack as Electron swept past round and off towards the Island.

Following the example of the leading 31.7's we remained under whites, with a goose-winged jib, as we ran down to the mark and then powered up towards the Island looking for shallow water. Electron reefed earlier than us and once again we caught up with them - but our own reef (compounded by a duff call from the Skipper to do it whilst on starboard) hurt as we were slow and got caught in the tide; there was no way back. A long beat up the Island shore followed and we weren't unhappy to cross the line!

Report from Moondog, Class 5

For our first race on a different boat to last year 25 to 35 knots over the deck was not our ideal conditions. The new Moondog (Ex Lazy Bear) should suit us well and we look forward to some better results once the winds lighten a bit. Main memories of the race were a good start level with Aquila in the front row over the line. Two sail reaching off the line proved very enjoyable as we appeared to be leaving the fleet. Then the first 31.7s all went for kites so we did as well however as this was our first ever spinnaker hoist on the new boat we went for the chicken chute which did end up a little conservative for the condition as the wind appeared to drop as the leg to Yarmouth progressed and the 31.7s went by and slowly crept away.

Turning into the wind showed how vunerable we are to a strong wind beat into a strong tide only two up, the tacking angles were appalling and VMG very low. We persevered with one reef and #3 up the first beat and dropped down to 2 reefs for the second. The beat back to the finish was spent concentrating on< the depth sounder readings with numerous rapid tacks as the reading suddenly shot down to 2 metre and sometimes less. Sincere apologies to British Beagle as she may have been tracking us into Gurnard bay, we passed about 50 metres inside the buoy heading into the bay and had travelled 100 to 200 metres when suddenly the depth shot down to 2.5 and by the time we had crashed tacked were in 1.9, Definitely too close for comfort on the end of the ledge, we survived. Looking back at British Beagle we were horrified to see her come to a dead halt on the end of the ledge with the stern rising visibly high out of the water. She soon retired and we hope no severe damage was done to either crew or boat.

We finished around 15:45 and assumed a poor result due to the amount of time spent beating poorly into the wind and tide however were pleased to be fourth and are looking forward to improvements in future races. Many thanks to the race committee for not sending us round SW Shingles, that could have been fun!