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2008 Race ReportsRace 10 - WeymouthReport from Blazer, Laser 28, Class 5 " I would like to leave at 18:00 and take the boat over
to Cowes, its an early start".....That was the first email
from Colin Blazer's owner. Hmmmm the logistics of one crew member
driving from Plymouth to Weymouth, catching the train to Southampton
and another driving from Folkestone to Southampton via the M25
- on a Friday evening all before 18:00 probability slim, to diminishing!
Well the motley crew assembled on Friday evening, with food and
a beer before pushing off to East Cowes a little later than 18:00
just in time to catch last orders. Saturday morning, we pushed out to the start line, with bacon rolls cooked onboard and filter coffee purchased ashore - limitations of a single ring cooker! Getting the sails up and a couple of timed runs and a transit check. Coming into the start line, Moondog tacked in front of us, but with good pace we managed to sail beneath Mestengo, over Moondog and hit the line with reasonable pace and clear wind, 1/3 rd of the way down the line avoiding what could of been chaos at the pin mark. We managed to hold our lane pretty well with Imperator sailing high as not to affect us. Xarifa and Moondog sailing low on the island shore. Off Yarmouth the wind decided to go very light, and the thoughts of a beer on the balcony as the sun was setting were almost gone! Then a light NW started to fill in. Managing to make the most of the tide around Hurst we pulled out on Moondog and Aelana (only reading through previous reports she's 40 FOOT ! ! Far too big for Class 5!) whilst catching Imperator and Xarifa. Lunchtime, Kate and Alice managed to excel themselves with once again a fantastic hamper to feed 5 athletes. (I think they want to come to the JOG dinner??) A nice beat up to St Albans Head, just managing to hold onto the leaders. Then a fetch with a little bit more wind, and the big boats grew legs and we didn't :-( Keep pouring water on her Colin and she'll grow into a 35 footer - but not this year!! Poole here we come!! Report from St. Albans Head
We settled down in the glorious sunshine to eat our lunch next
to the Coastal Watch station. After lunch and observing the activities
of the watch officers I decided to interrupt their watching and
asked if they had seen certain boats. The reply restored my faith
in all my calculations. The fleet had not yet passed and the boats
I had seen may have been a large number of cruising boats heading
for Weymouth on the tide. Our thoughts did stray to the possibility
of congestion in Weymouth when the JOG fleet arrives. We did not have long to wait for the first boat to arrive (approx
1340) and I spent some time trying to photograph spots in the
distance. Some pictures have come out OK some are a little obscure.
I will leave it up to Peter to decide which to show. I have cropped
and enlarged most of them to identify the boats. As the last of the yachts passed by, we continued our walk along
the coastal path to the Square and Compass Inn at Worth Matravers
where we sampled the beer before returning to Wareham for an evening
meal and the drive back to Portsmouth. It was an enjoyable day out watching the boats pass the headland,
but, if you want a good picture of your boat you need to come
in a bit closer. Report from Tearaway too, J 120, Class 3 We like Saturday morning starts. A relaxed Friday night on board
gave a chance to go up the mast and replace our anemometer. Just
a pity the skipper forgot to take the "how to do it"
book and couldn't work out how to calibrate it. Still, sailing
head to wind in 30 knots was clearly wrong but lots of button
pushing soon made it worse and upset the compass, depth and speed
as well so that was good then. The dog sat in the cockpit looking up, wondering if dad would
be good to eat when he came down. The only good thing about a
bigger boat is the bigger winches which compensates for the skipper's
expanding waistline when Ruth does the winching. P.S. Picking up the crew at 07.30 gave us a relaxed motor over to the start and the prospect of a reasonable NW breeze but, after watching the earlier starts go off with exactly that, we suffered a reduction in wind speed and a SW wind making the first part of the trip painful and frustrating.(We don't go well in the light stuff). Still, the dog liked the sponsorship Panda on the mainsail of the WWF boat and only woofed a bit. Then the Helen McArthur Trust boat went by and finally the distinctive roundels of the RAF boat. Now I am sure there is something in the rules about advertising but we are jolly nice JOG people so turned a Nelsonian eye.
Report from Mestengo, Mustang 30, Class 5 It was a bit of a bother to get to the line more or less exactly
on the 5 minute gun after repositioning a boat outside us at Warsash
and generally getting ready to go but there we were and with a
nice northwester. Perhaps a shy spinnaker we thought on the way
over? Of course not and it stayed below all weekend. Mestengo was three up after Stefan's bout of food poisoning was phoned in - missed you Stefan but the absence of another bag in the less-than-palatial conditions of a Mustang 30 was handy at times! Just a bit puffed after putting the main on while motoring over after a midweek repair, we started more-or-less on the line but not with boat speed so got rolled by a couple of boats including Blazer who seemed to find a clear line towards East Lepe and were going nicely on the north side of the deep water. So one boat who usually get things right towards the north and others including Zarifa towards the island shore - we sailed pretty much down the mid channel staying in deep water and trying to hunt down the best breeze. Mark provided excellent tidal input but our plan to 'bang Sconce' off Yarmouth in one went wrong with some light and variable shifty stuff. However spotting a fresh line of breeze helped and we picked up speed after some tacks and exited the Solent close to Hurst Castle leaving Alchemist and others in the shifty stuff.
The game plan was to stay out in Poole Bay but, with the wind backing, starboard tack looked really unattractive with a heading close to due south so we adopted plan B which was stay in. This meant we had a fairly close view of Anvil Point, St Albans Head and the Dorset coast in the summer sunshine - beautiful it all was too. The wind freshened and at times another body would have helped but we had a close hauled lay line to the finish from St Albans and thought a decent result may be on, although the ever- speedy Blazer was comfortably ahead (and we give her time). However a 30 degree header about 3 miles from the finish came
in and we watched the seaward boats coming in to the finish nicely
- offshore had clearly paid off and even without the header probably
would have done in any case. A great race in lovely conditions, a bite and a few beers at Weymouth SC then an early bed before a Sunday 4:00am departure in the company of Electron with the motor on all the way - glad we had the diesel topped up! Note to self - leave earlier to avoid plugging tide from before Hurst when there is no wind or an easterly. Thanks JOG - and thanks to Mark (I may bring anti-snore earplugs next time) and Richard for the excellent company!
"Evening Skip" Vickie shouted as she walked down the pontoon towards Electron on the Friday evening: "Did you get all of the jobs done on the boat and how is Peter?" (The autopilot) Skip took the bag of fruit Vickie offered and placed it on the deck as she boarded the boat. He looked down at the bag of juicy apples and bananas and said: "Boats fine. Tell me - why do you bring fruit for a sail every weekend - we never eat it?" Vickie just shrugged her shoulders and sighed. A trend on Electron, which started earlier in the season, was for Vickie to get a stab of conscience before the race and buy fresh fruit for the boat. Every weekend the fruit was placed carefully in a locker so as not to bruise it or get damaged. At the end of the weekend Vickie took the fruit home to consume the following week. It seems Electron has become a charity for taking fruit for a healthy sail to nice destinations at weekends . . . . "Seriously" Vickie added: "is the boat ok?" Skip then proceeded to outline all the work done on Electron
since limping back from Alderney: "Peter (the autopilot)
is back from Raymarine hospital - he has had a ball transplant
you know" said Skip with a leery grin. Vickie did a few "ooh
er's" just to be polite, ignored the innuendo and asked about
the engine: "They say the engine should be ok - apparently
it had half the seabed plus a few supermarket carrier bags in
the heat exchanger" said Skip. Skip looked up the mast and pointed with a painful look on his face: "Got a new windex and B&G wand too". The pained look was obviously because Skip was thinking about his bank balance!! That same evening, as if to add insult to injury, a new eatery opened in the Marina literally at the end of the pontoon where Electron is berthed. Skip's hopes of a useful and very local watering hole were cruelly dashed after he had to pay £7.20 for two pints when he and Vickie went to do some research. All during the race - in fact all weekend Skip kept muttering: "Seven bloody pound twenty - anybody would think it was petrol. . . ." Race day dawned and the intrepid Electron crew arrived at the start. Not as early as had become the norm because Skip did the unthinkable, he failed to set his alarm correctly. Vickie, however, did have her watch and spent all the time it took to sail to the start telling Skip how she did not like wearing watches, how she really did not like the rubber strap her watch had and how she had cleverly programmed the watch alarm the previous week at work "without the manual!!!". Skip just steered the boat. Electrons start, whilst not electrifying was also not a disaster. No expensive hats or sunglasses were lost and Skip even remembered to turn on the fixed video camera (even if it did film very little!). Around fifteen minutes after the start there began an insistent beeping noise. Skip became rapidly irritated: "Where the hell is that beeping coming from?" he asked. Vickie looked sheepishly at her watch, pressed a button and then admitted that, whilst she had cleverly programmed her watch alarm with out a manual she in fact could not work out how to turn it off. She did add that it was fortunate the alarm was set for 08:45!! The race out was faster than anticipated with a little more breeze than Skips selected weather site of the week. Once out of the Solent a more southerly course was chosen which, in hind sight, proved not to be the correct strategy - ah well! (Note from Author: Skips best navigation efforts were always completed on the back of a fag packet in the pub with several pints of cheap beer eating a large plate of steak and chips. Now he has given up the evil weed, stopped drinking (yeh right) and now eats hippy food he is struggling - has anyone got any suggestions?) Still, a fantastic days sailing with by far better conditions than anticipated. It was a good day out and a good shake down for all the repairs too! In the yacht club in Weymouth Skip purchased two pints of bitter for £4.40. You can imagine what he said. The only way to pacify him was to keep buying him beer. In fact, according to Vickie, whilst the beer did pacify him Saturday night he was still moaning about it when they arrived back in Hamble Sunday lunchtime. Looks like it will be vin ordinaire in St Vaast. . . .
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After
consulting the weather and checking approx. Elapsed times to St.
Albans Head, Saturday morning started off in relaxed mood. Some
domestic chores over we started our journey from Portsmouth at
a moderate pace arriving in Wareham in plenty of time to relax
in the local market for an hour. The plan was to be on the headland
at noon, expecting the fleet to arrive at about 1330. We did get
to St. Albans Head by 1230 but saw in the distance, towards Weymouth,
a fleet of boats. How could I get the timing so wrong.
Why
do people walking by on the pontoon say "that looks like
hard work" and not offer a hand?
We
got a nice lift up towards Newtown by going half way over to the
mainland side and a building breeze brought us from the middle
of the fleet up towards the front and finally the GPS was telling
us we would arrive before Tuesday. Tack followed tack but with
a full crew on board for a change we could share the work around
and enjoyed a sparkling sail out into Christchurch Bay. Wind shift
followed by wind shift dictated the actual course and we seemed
to get most of them right. We passed Anvil about a mile off for
the best of the tide even though Skipper had left Peter Bruce
at home too! Wind speed now showing 30 knots (see above), we shaped
a course for the last few miles and went through the lee (kind
eh!) of one or two class five boats and then got headed, naturally,
so that we had to put in a few more tacks to the finish where
we got a nice hooter, in close company with Shades of Blue and
Only Just so we had a good J Boat showing. Saw Floating Voter
going the other way on her way home and made our way into Weymouth
for the usual rafting up bun fight/shuffling of boats/what time
are you going/etc.
The
social side began with beer O'clock on board, followed by fish
and chips (we know how to live!), the yacht club to chat and then
various salubrious Weymouth drinking emporiums till the early
hours for some and an early to bed for others. Easy to spot the
difference in the morning based on dark glasses and general need
for strong coffee!
Bacon
rolls (originally planned for the trip to the start) were served
before Yarmouth if I recall correctly and the first of the weekend
comments about the lack of a gimbled cooker were heard - yeah,
but it was cheap!
