2008 Race Reports

Race 11 - Cowes to Dinard/St.Malo

Report from Longue Pierre, Class 4

"What do you mean, we're leaving the dock at six in the morning?" seemed to be the general sentiment of the crew of Longue Pierre before the St Malo race. We set off in good time, but without the heavy number 1, which had been lost between the sailmakers and the marina. We have subsequently found that Sunsail collected it with some of their sails. We had a good look at the line, hoisted the main and spent a few minutes sorting the reefing lines out, then realised we were down tide of the start with less then 10 minutes to go. Doh! So with much anguish we ran back, cursing as we had to turn the engine off at the preparatory signal. At the start, we were so far OCS that the race committee hadn't seen us, and didn't call out our sail numbers, so after brief consideration of turning around and starting, we continued, ducked over the line, and started having given the rest of the fleet a 3 minute head start.

A good beat down the Solent saw us recover to pass Needles Fairway in the company of Scarlet Jester, with just ICAP ahead. We tacked South trying to follow ICAP, to get into weaker East going tide. ICAP soon disappeared over the horizon and then Artimis passed us. We spent some time debating if we should carry on as ICAP and Artimis probably had better routing software however we decided to tack back West in anticipation of the forecast wind shift. After another couple of tacks to stay out of the unfavourable tide at Anvil Point, we consulted the nav software, Seatrack, which put us sailing up into Beaulieu for dinner. Armed with this useful information, we switched it off and continued with paper and pencil. We eventually turned South at around 1700, with a depressing 65M still to cover to reach Les Hanois. Sue's delicious chicken stew was served, and the crew settled into a watch system. The wind veered, and we cracked sheets and made good progress, rounding Hanois around 0140. Rocky recovered from seasickness at the sight of the spinnaker being passed up to the deck, and a smooth hoist was followed by some difficult sailing in the lumpy sea. After a couple of hours, Deb and Toby were woken with the call of "we need a bigger spinnaker", and we peeled from the small kite to the reacher.

The sailing became easier after sunrise, and we sailed past the Minquiers towards Banchenou. Jersey coastguard had helpfully reported the current wind at Dinard - SW and the boats ahead were all changing down to smaller spinnakers, so we headed up, with Kevin doing a good job on the helm and the crew easing the main, kicker and spinnaker at the first indications of a broach. We entered a game of chicken with the Belgian boat alongside - who would change to white sails last- and we won the game, but could have held the kite for longer, as the drop was slick and quick.

Lunch in St Malo was followed by a pleasant sail home, the highlights being our new culinary creation, stilton mushrooms, a moonlit sail past Jersey and Sark, and over 10 knots over the ground through the Alderney race.