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2007 Race ReportsRace 5 - St.Vaast RaceReport from J-Fever, Class 3 A pleasant evening and we were out in the starting area in good time. Watching the earlier classes go off it was obviously not going to be spinnakers to start. The start was not one of the best, to leeward and behind most of the fleet, but we enjoy the challenge and looked better by the time we got to the Fort. Looked a good angle, and in view of the wind strength we broke out the new sunshine number and agreed that the committee had the wrong destination in mind. Result! We were first at Bembridge. Barrie had arrived early and prepared our dinner which was sitting in the oven and gratefully received by the crew after we turned downwind.
Downhill all the way after that, not our best point of sailing. We changed the kite and juggled speed and wind angle all night and were perturbed to find ourselves finishing with classes 4 and 5. However we were early for the lock gates, dug out the anchor from the locker and showed the crew how we anchor under sail. Well, sort of, we omitted some of the backchat that usually goes on. French coffee, food, M. Gosselin were all awaiting us, and we had had a super sail over. Tim did the annual wine shopping, we thoroughly enjoyed the party and our meal ashore,and set off on the return about midday on Sunday. A cracking sail, perfectly timed as the wind blew up just as we reached Southampton Water. Some of the crew amused themselves building polars for the performance with half a ton (or should that be tun?) of wine in the focastle. Many thanks to Peter and the race committee for a lovely weekend and for all their organising, just the wrong race for that wind.......so if we could have that wind again for Deauville please? Report from Bounty Hunter, Class 3 The first and most important part of the pre-race preparation for the St Vaast race every year is to book a table at the Hotel Fuschia. Unfortunately, we could only get a table for 7 instead of the usual 8, so Rod made the necessary adjustments to the crew roster, and 7 of us set off from the Hamble, arriving at the start with an impressive amount of time to spare. The start was a lively affair, close reaching into a brisk north-easterly, with a strong flood tide under us, and the first leg was fairly uneventful, with Pimms served on the windward rail. Hope and Glory, leading and just ahead of us, left a big gap between themselves and fort, giving us enough room to temporarily sneak through into first place. The bear-away wasn't initially big enough to allow spinnakers to be hoisted in the 18-20 knots of breeze, but soon one or two asymmetrics stared to appear in the darkening sky behind us, and J-fever came flying past us, cursing their luck that this race wasn't to Deauville, but that the next mark, Bembridge Ledge would take the fleet fairly close to dead-down wind.
Initial progress was very fast, with speeds over 10 knots occasionally seen, and the wind held up all night, albeit declining a little as the race progressed. We seemed to be furthest west of the class 3 fleet, along with one other yacht, unidentified in the dark, that came past us quite quickly, and then seemed to hold station with us, just ahead and to windward, for several hours. When daylight came, this turned out to be another Prima, White Knuckles, and we were joined by Hope and Glory, Thunder and JBellino, swapping gybes as we approached the finish. We tried everything to get past White Knuckles, including putting the owner on the foredeck for the gybes ( the bowman had been left at home ), but to no avail, and we finished a couple of minutes behind them, just after 0700, with Jahmali sneaking between us on corrected time. As the lock didn't open until 0900, we pottered about, unable to cook breakfast and desperate for our morning coffee, eventually tying ourselves to a large mooring buoy with White Knuckles dangling off our stern, and waited until a flotilla of fishing boats heralded the opening of the gates. The moment we were tied up, Chris ran ashore to get more gas, and we were soon tucking into our bacon and scrambled egg sandwiches, and after a short sleep, the wonderful Thai curry. A very pleasant drinks party with the rest of the JOG fleet preceded the gastronomic extravaganza of the Hotel Fushia's amazing "Entre Terre et Mer" menu, but with the weather forecast worsening, and Rodney having an overwhelming urge to go night-clubbing in Bournemouth, we set off home at midnight, arriving before the worst of the wind on Sunday morning. Report from Whistler, Class 5 It was just like the old days, when Cougar were still Xploiter and Team Whistler's pre-race routine was soaking up the sun outside The Castle in Gosport, over a leisurely lunch and a few pints, before departing for Cowes to complete the crew and enjoy a pre-start pizza supper… It looked like a bun-fight at the pin end of the line, so we opted to start over towards the shore in clear air to leeward of the fleet, a position we stuck with down the Solent as it seemed to pay off and we ended up at the front with Aviva and Heaven's Above V. At the Forts we delayed our hoist as Aviva seemed to be sailing quite low under theirs but, as the wind backed a little we popped ours and headed out round Bembridge Ledge. Aviva and Tai-Pan headed off below us, sailing down the rhumb line but we were tracking quite well, just ahead of Electron and Annokia, sailing on the high side of the fleet as the light went and we settled down for the Channel. As the tide turned the rolling sea eased somewhat, but the residual swell was rocking us about, especially as the wind dropped, making it difficult to keep the kite flying and allowing Xara to creep up and past us… As the light grew the next morning, the guessing game of trying to identify boats from their lights was resolved, with Tai-Pan just below us, Electron further inshore, Aviva inshore and well ahead and Annokia coming up behind.
Sitting at anchor we were trying to work out where we had finished, checking who was in and scanning the horizon for those still racing. With remarkable eyesight for someone of his habits, the Skipper spotted a smudge appearing out of the haze "do you think that could be a boat?" he enquired. "Well, it's not likely to be a lorry or a car out there" responded Velcro, who should save that one up for his wedding speech! Report from Nick on Jahmali, Class 3 It is odd writing a race report that does not feature Oz Privateer. After our incident on the Christchurch Bay race it quickly became apparent that any major repair to a yacht would take months rather than weeks. After calling Peter to update him on our situation I immediately started receiving calls from fellow JOG competitors kindly offering places aboard their boats for the forthcoming races.The first person to call me was Mike Wallis, the owner and skipper of Jahmali, offering myself and some of the Ozzy crew the opportunity to sail to St Vaast aboard his lovely J109. After some quick phoning around Tim P, Ozzy's co-owner and I were available to crew for Mike. With this being our first offshore race for 9 months Tim and I were out of practice for remembering what kit to pack and the art of leaving work in time to beat the Friday Bank Holiday traffic. The trip to Hamble in order to join Jahmali was quite a feat of navigation in its own right bypassing the various traffic jams on the A34, M3 and M27. Introductions completed, a discussion regarding when to eat the beef casserole that Sarah had prepared took place, I decided that this was a good sign and that the Ozzy standard of food preparation was quietly embodied by other boats in the fleet. Even better, Sarah introduced us to the Jahmali chocolate cupboard; the night sail looked to become very civilized. Giving ourselves plenty of time Mike gave the crew notice that we were going to set off for the start and once clear of the berth handed the helm over to Tim so that he could get a feel for how Jahmali handled under power. Whilst making our way to the JOG start we discussed the weather forecast and our tactics for the predicted lighter winds once we reached Bembridge. As usual the forecast did not do quite what we expected and after a good start we found ourselves throwing away the tactical plan and sailing the shortest route to St Vaast possible. Once we were settled into the race Sarah passed round bowls (not the dog bowls that we have on Oz,) of fantastic beef casserole. Having eaten we elected to move to a rolling watch system, which left Tim on the helm with Mike and I below for the first stint. Not long after settling down a debate from the crew on deck could be heard, discussing the merits of passing a super tanker to it's stern, to achieve this Tim executed a new manoeuvre called the Tactical Feather (now embodied in the Early Learning Centre book of "how to sail"). The wind never does quite what you want it to and it remained a bit too far to the North thus not allowing us to fully exploit the asymmetric kite carried on the J109. Tim did suggest that if we could bend the bowsprit through a few degrees the down wind capability would be improved; however, this was vetoed by a worried looking Mike. When dawn rose we could see that the fleet were all quite close to each other and that the finish would be determined by the final approach to St Vaast. We opted to head in to the coast to try and pick up the advantageous tide; unfortunately we did not press on quite far enough and only gained the advantage in the last ½ mile or so. On the way into the lock a French film crew were following the progress of the JOG invasion. Further press activity resulted in a very patient JOG secretary, Peter, explaining the origins of JOG and our club ethos. The Franglais was great and I think that it will make interesting reading when the article is published. Thank you to our race officers for a great race and thank you to all of you who invited my crew and I on to their boats for the race. Report from Tearaway Too, Class 3
So, there we were, a boat launched the previous day, never sailed by us before and the cheque to pay for it probably not yet cleared, off we went! J'nickit eat your heart out! To be kind the boat is 4 years old and had been lacking some TLC - except over the last week or so which had been manic for Martin & Ruth, plus various crew at various times. We effectively had no sails, certainly no "racing" sails, and the target for the weekend was just to finish without scaring people! So main halyard on and the boom stays up in the air, the Kicker seized solid, this is not a good start! Oh well, they always say twist is fast so who cares, No.1 up for the first time and charging round at 11 knots, gosh…this is **** fast and all a bit scary so lets change our minds, No. 3 up and off we go with the only practice of 2 tacks, 2 sail hoists and 1 gybe ever and no real idea about what the kite looks like, apart from one crew member who took the snuffer off it late last night! We were convinced we had left something behind, there were no signs of a spinnaker pole and guys, what's all this about? Anyway off the start line with the big boats was kind of fun and we looked in good shape for the first quarter of mile, probably even winning on handicap as we chased down bounty hunter. We slowly dropped back as we headed towards the forts, The usual warm welcome at St Vaast was most enjoyed as always…we did as we were told and scrambled around for our JOG flag before entering through the lock! A number of guests appeared on the boat to "check it out"…they seemed impressed by Martin & Chris' electrical skills as they tried to get the shore power cable fixed…not to mention the boat to of course….the Café was buzzing as normal, as were our heads after a few beverages imbibed during a very pleasant French lunch, followed by a trip to Monsieur Gosselin, the Aladdin's cave of yummy French foods and plonk (sorry fine wines :-)), a get together on Only Just and then the JOG get together… catching up with everyone and explaining quite how little we knew about the boat at the start line! However, as it turned out some of the crew probably did know more about the boat on the start line than they could remember from the night before!!
Our familiar purple kites will be back soon and the ships dog will be joining us for Yarmouth……that will be one quick pooch! Thanks again to JOG for an excellent weekend sailing! |
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At Bembridge, we hoisted our all-purpose, symmetric kite, and headed off into the channel. Sally had prepared a delicious smelling Thai beef curry, and went to start cooking it, to find that we had no gas. The full bottle we had put on in Cherbourg was now empty. We crawled around the bilges checking for leaks with lighted matches ( only joking ! ) but could find no explanation, so resigned ourselves to cold rolls, and a long night without comforting cups of tea or coffee.
Once again it seemed that our passage planning was about an hour out (poor navigation, an overly optimistic Skipper - or perhaps just because the wind had eased…) and we ended up making a couple of gybes across the building tide towards the line, which we crossed with Tai-Pan and Annokia chasing.
After our practice in class 3 with the X362 a couple of weeks ago (just slightly late for the Class 4 Nab Race start!!) we found ourselves on the start line in class 3 for real this time! Big, scary, fast boats and then the realisation, "yeeeeks" this new 'floating cottage' is meant to be one of the fastest ones here. In under 3 weeks Martin had decided to change all the plans for the season and sell the X362 and buy a J/120! (I think he really wanted a J/122 :-)) He said something about being more comfortable for cruising etc….mmmm!
and then on the way to Bembridge the colourful sails started going up…we debated for a matter of moments before skip stated "I don't think so in over 20 knots of breeze with only one kite which has certainly seen better days, caution is the better part of vala!" We settled in at the back of the fleet enjoying the 'no pressure' sail…snooze time!. Around midnight the wind had dropped off slightly and we decided 'sod it', lets give it a go…the battering ram was deployed and off we screamed (not literally, don't panic, it all went up very nicely considering!) and off we went at 12 knots before we worked out where down wind was! There followed the mother of all raps caused by a certain member of the crew driving, who shall remain nameless unless he (small clue - girlies Ruth & Jo exonerated please note!) fails to buy the beers next trip out (you know who u are!!!!), and who actually tried to blame the guy trimmer for not bringing the pole back (doh!!!) as the kite died behind the main! Down it came, on the deck, repack and up again. As dawn broke (couldn't see any sign of the sun coming up!) we realised the kite was actually different shades of yellow….very pretty patches…eeek!!! Still, it got us across the finish line…an excellent first trip out, nothing like a steep learning curve, and from the back, there is only one way to go…onwards and upwards hopefully!!
Due to the weather forecast we opted to try and not test the boat out further in gale winds so left, with a fair few JOG boats, on the first lock opening of Sunday morning shortly after 1030am. Luckily one JOG boat…a J122 that shall remain nameless (ooopsy!) managed to interpret our shouting and frantic waving and to the relief of us all turned back and went out round the Le Gavendest South Cardinal, instead of heading straight out after La Dent and through the teeth-like reef of rocks in between!! The cruise back was very quick, very enjoyable and very comfortable, although a tad wet we realized. We opted for a two sail reach all the way back, sailing consistently between 9 to 11 knots to the Needles. Martin recorded 12.6 as the fastest speed for the trip! All the crew are looking forward to unlocking the potential of the new boat, the later starts and the increased drinking times. Not to mention probably the most comfy interior on any JOG boat excluding the swans of course!