2008 Race Reports

Race 6 - The Hamble Estate Agency, Cowes - Yarmouth Race

Report from Whistler, Class 5

Our plans were nearly derailed when the Skipper received an email from Tim the Helm/Main/Rail advising that he was being taken away for a weekend of unbridled excess to celebrate his 50th birthday (at that age probably a cream tea and a peak at a couple of saucy postcards…) As ever, the Whistler recruitment network went into overtime and we bought on board some new blood, freshly back from Antigua (although we were surprised to find out for one of them it was via the Munro County Detention Centre - but that, as they say, is another story.)

After a couple of "welcome on board" pints at the new bar at Gosport Marina, the crew decamped to the (in)famous Great Wall "All you can eat" Restaurant but were foiled by the rest of the population of Gosport who had arrived before us… was this a portent of the weekend to come?

We made a decent start and enjoyed a good sail down the Solent trying to find the best tide and all seemed to be going well until we noticed the boats including Aviva and Alchemist that had stayed on the mainland side coming through, probably on better breeze.

Through Hurst we had the first of several "wonky bits" as wind died (at least on the tide) and swell increased and we all bunched up before Needles Fairway. This presented something of a challenge as the Skipper lost all orientation during the drop and we went from running downwind to hard on it in an attempt to get round (which we managed more successfully than with Snowden last time out!)

We set off toward North Head and the tactical team made a great call to start heading into the Needles which gave us a huge jump up the fleet - which we seemed to lose in the second half of the leg as the Skipper contrived to tack off lifts and into headers (although at the time he of course blamed everyone else on board)

Seems that sailing is getting like Snakes and Ladders!

Nothing to be gained on the leg up to Hurst but we somehow carried our way nicely into the car park off Hurst, right back in the mix of things again, now we didn't want to throw it away…… by deciding to head over to the Island shore and trying to short tack up the shallows in light wind… it seemed a good idea at the time honest.

Well done to the crew for good humour and physical resilience as we made some 26 tacks on the way into the finish and a well-earned couple of bottles of red. One for experience!

Report from Rapscallion of Suburbia, Class 5

We were asked for our sail numbers just outside Cowes by a couple in a small boat, who were obviously hunting around for starters for their own race. We could have joined in, but decided to give it a miss and trundle on down to the start line and the usual identity gate routine. On time yet again (very worrying trend this), we managed more by luck than judgement to be in the main pack going over the line and got the kite up and flying quickly. Wind was quite reasonable, but with a tendency to shift about quite a bit and go light from time to time. Keeping a very close eye on Shadowfax (always a good ploy this incidentally), we kept more or less level with them all the way to Fairway. At this point is where things went slightly pear-shaped. We got a bit to close for comfort to the buoy, but managed to round it without a buoy/boat interface!. We got the kite down without much of a problem, but because of a shortage of hands we did not drop the pole and hence the genoa was not able to go across to the port side. It lost us distance on Shadowfax, but only by about 80 yards. Beating up to North Head was the classic conundrum of do we stay going North and get pushed west by the tide or do we go East (slowly) and make ground to North Head that way? The best solution we could come up with was to go North until headed and then head east until headed. Unfortunately it didn't quite work out that way and we lost sight of Shadowfax.

Getting round North Head eventually we had a close haul down towards The Trap keeping as close inshore as possible to catch the back eddy. Getting into the Trap was where we made our second mistake. Trying to keep the north shore close we found that we were just going back and forth without any gain whatsoever. This lost us a good 10-15 minutes. Eventually realising that trying to keep to the north shore was futile (and seeing Juno go aground), we opted to head straight across to the Island side and keep in close to the Island shore tacking up towards Yarmouth. Again this was a slow, painful leg, but we got past Fort Albert and Sconce without hitting any lurking rocks and crossed the line and knowing we had not done well. Well done to Shafowfax for winning what I think was their first JOG race of the season.

Report from Electron, Class 5

"Boat's all ready but I have not fixed the charging problem": said Skip. Vicky looked at Skip suspiciously and Skip added: "So that means we have to be careful or it's no Peter the Pilot on Sunday". Vicky understood and looked around Electron to see what could be turned off or unplugged - not a lot really. . . .

Race day dawned and it looked like reasonable weather, if a bit grey. Warm bacon rolls fortified the crew as Skip fiddled with his watch. Vickie looked at Skip fiddling (ooh er missus) and said: "Ah, as you have got a watch I don't need to wear mine" (she hates wearing a watch for some reason). Skip replied along the lines of being silly and nice French pastries and added that if she did not like wearing it maybe she should attach it to her lifejacket. He also added that two watches were better than none and grinned as Vickie tried to look over the bulge of her lifejacket to connect her watch. Authors note: Followers of Electron will note a theme from the start of the season. That being Vickie and her watch. Watch this space…….!

The usual "this sail or that sail" did not happen as the breeze indicated a nice start under kite. With both watches almost synchronised Electron started mid fleet and followed Alchemist off the line. As the first mark, East Lepe neared Skip said: "Ooops (similar words) - we have to leave East Lepe to Starboard" and proceeded to run Electron by the lee to stay on course. Vickie looked at Skip with a look that only women can give to men. She looked down the course and asked Skip if they would need to gybe. Skips reply confirmed that one of the most horrible of actions for double handers may be needed - a gybe in light airs!!!

The gybe was almost perfect (least said soonest mended) and Electron forged on towards Needles Fairway. Skip peered ahead at the boats in front and advised Vickie that a prudent early drop of the kite would be best after their recent performance. Vickie sat, trimming the kite with another look that only woman can give - that sort of hurt "but I did my best and you don't appreciate me look". Skip, being a coward and now relatively old in years recognised the signs and, not wishing to lose his only crew, sucked up like a coward - it worked!! The drop was perfect, the gybe went well and Electron took a couple of places so was now only almost last rather than last!

The beat up to North Head was interesting with lots of "VMG'ing" and watching of other boats. Once around the mark there was a mad dash for the shore to take advantage of the back eddy around Hurst and with his usual perceptiveness Skip advised Vickie that they would be in for "a whole heap of pain around the corner" and if they were unlucky they would get "totally screwed" in the tide.

Short tacking around Hurst with a heap of other bats was obviously great fun. Skip is still grinning from ear to ear days later. When this erstwhile reporter interviewed the intrepid crew of Electron it became clear the double handed crew fell fairly and squarely into two separate camps:
Skip in the "if you don't touch bottom you aren't trying hard enough" brigade, Vickie in the "oh my gawd we're going to die" brigade. After one severe bouncing just before the trap and two other minor touch and goes which Skip used to tack the boat Vickie stopped looking past the bow - there often was not any water to see any way!!

Just around the corner from Hurst Electron was held out in the tide by another Class 5 boat and so Skip with his usual navigational skill and daring decided it was time to dash across the island side, arriving just in time to see Only Just park on the rocks. Electron was wisely tacked out and in and out and in and out until one last tack meant the finish could be layed. Skip was concentrating on keeping Electron going and asked Vickie to check the Finish diagram to make sure there was no inner distance mark (he's getting old and memory is failing). Vickie confirmed the only features likely to stop Electron were the rapidly reducing depth and THAT MOORED BOAT right on the bow. Ooops! a skilful duck and one hoot later had Electron finished.

What a fantastic race - It was a pleasure to push Electron hard even though double handed amongst dozens of other JOG boats - all of which behaved impeccably and with consideration. A particular thank must go to J-Fever for ducking Electron even though they had rights.

The Bugle gathering was fun as always - Vickie was too tired to be too naughty with the alcohol and the curry in the yacht club rounded off a perfect evening.

Report from Only Just, Class 4

Saturday dawned and the three hot shots [at drinking rum] came from all corners for a relatively leisurely start of 0800. El Capitano had the boat ready so it was a simple step aboard for the Official Racing Snakes Emma and Fiona and we were off.

Only Just's special keel, with built in lower flap where part of the fairing had broken off, left us a bit down on speed so the drift out of The Solent was interesting but unspectacular. We spent most of our time watching the new, conservative Full Pelt creep away. What next for Mr Fein? Surely it can only be a centre cockpit Moody? Notwithstanding, conservative or not, they certainly had some speed!

Rounding Fairway was a bit of a drag, but the beat to North Head gave some options and allowed us to close up on the leaders. The drag race along Hurst Spit was uneventful apart from Shades of Blue [Fast Eddie] sailing through our lee in a slower boat. However, the excitement at Hurst was of a high standard. I warned Emma and Fiona that errors were not an option, tacks must be clean, crisp and they needed to act as eyes and ears for the old fart at the back of the boat. All went well as we fought our way through with shouts of "water" and replies of "there is no water" echoing.

We sailed up to the hook and touched it hard: we were trying to reduce flaps on the keel. Anyway, we know where it is now! A quick blast across to the Island shore followed, then an interesting beat up towards Sconce. In close, we discovered we had a choice, shore or lobster pot so took the soft option and eventually got washed off so that we could continue, then the most interesting, as we sailed into the shore with 2 metres under the keel: a rock leapt off the sea bed and attached itself to the bottom of the keel and tried to lift us out of the water. We were, as they say in books, high and dry and on a falling tide. Well, we only had one bottle of rum and three litres of wine so there was a hurried discussion and unanimously we put the engine on and motored into a glorious retirement.

Report from Blazer, Class 5

Another Yarmouth Jog weekend. Yippee!!

The crew from Blazer gradually assembled in dribs and drabs to the vessel in Ocean Village. With a flood tide Skipper was keen for an early start. Bacon rolls as we came down Southampton Water put us in a pretty good mood.

Off the start line we tried the head sail and popped the kite for our new crew member to see how badly we were at gybing and what she had let herself in for over the weekend!! Off the start line we were getting bad air from Xarifa, who even without a kite creates a whopping great big wind shadow. So a quick gybe out to clear our air saw us in the middle of the pack with Alchemist over to the mainland shore, Whistler over on the island side. In the middle was Moondog, Blazer and a little behind Mestingo.

By the time we all arrived at Hurst the fleet had compressed, and it was one of those restart situations, with a line of boats taking the middle track including Moondog, Mestingo, a couple of Sigmas and a couple of Beneteaus. Alchemist and Blaser taking a lower course to the Northern edge of the channel. Xarifa was first to round (far to fast to be in Class 5 ;-) ) Closely followed by the chasing pack.

The beat saw Blazer climb really well - new rig settings, clean bottom, clear heads (by that time in the day!), clear air, physiological advantage? Xarifa did a horizon job on the rest of the fleet. With the incoming weather waterproofs were applied and the picnic hamper opened. A big thank you to the shore side support team namely Kate and baby Alice for supplying such good food. Dietary needs to enable us to perform at the maximum level - or just stop moaning that we were hungry!

The beat was a little shifty so lots of looking at the compass, the number one and a full main pulled us along nicely. Once around North Head we headed off towards the beach and out of the tide.

Now came the next crunch point in the race - heavy ebb flow coming out of the Solent, little wind, and lots of boats chasing!! What side of the beat to go......

Xarifa decided to head straight across to the Island shore, a mistake that probably cost her the race. Seeing how she was doing, and where the first of the class 4 boats were going we decided to tack up through the trap in close company to No Doubt and Arcsine. Yeah the bigger boat were hurting our wind, but its great having a really good depth sounder such as a bigger boat, as No doubt decided to prove.

Once through the trap we headed up the Lymington shore, by this time Shadowfax had greatly reduced our lead. The deciding moment was when to head over to the Yarmouth side and make a shot at the line. Unfortunately we left it 100 yards to late and let Shadowfax go across first, with increasing pressure on the Island shore Shadowfax managed to sail through us and gain a bullet - Well done.

Evening entertainment saw a pub crawl around Yarmouth, catching a late ferry back to the boat to find that the wind had picked up and we were being blown onto the pontoon with three boats outside, the fenders did a fine job at protecting the boats, and keeping the crew up all night squeaking, at least it was better than the previous nights snoring?

Report from Oz Privateer, Class 3

The crew of Oz Privateer finally mutinied. Don and Mike decided to go on Holiday, Toby and Rob had finals, Oliver is in the middle of AS exams and Chris had something to go to. Lucky for us "The Zed" used his considerable powers of persuasion and co-opted a work colleague, Nicky, to come out for a weekend out on the water. Hence, we found ourselves heading off to the start line with an intrepid crew of 5 one of whom had not sailed before. As we sailed in the prestart sequence bidding good morning to our fellow class 3 competitors we spied Toby on Eurof's wonderful new Elan 410. The Zed has reserved the right to interview Toby for his place back on the crew of Oz (we did understand that because Eurof was only racing on the Saturday Toby would be able to revise on the Sunday but we will still reserve the right to wind Toby up)
Our breakfast was Electron style boat bread. We had followed Paul's recipe from his website on the Friday night and we must admit that the bread was almost as good as Paul's, which was verified by the Maestro himself later in Yarmouth.

With a light breeze and a strong tide running to the West we opted to stay a bit line shy. We discussed the options for a bear headed hoist or not and decided that with the shortage of crew that the bear headed option would be ideal. Up went the lightweight kite and off we went. As soon as the kite went up it developed a slight twist in it which normally drops out after a few seconds. In order to help the twist undo I pulled down in the middle of the foot only to find myself with a hand full of kite not attached fully to the rest of the cloth. For the rest of the run to the fairway buoy I had one eye on the leach and another measuring the progress of the hole. Once we had settled down we headed for the Island side of the course hoping to pick up the better tide off Newtown Creak and round to Yarmouth. As we Gybed down the Solent the crew went from good gybes to excellent gybes and this will be reflected in their annual performance review. The Oz annual performance review the OAP r determines important things such as, who eats first, who buys the first round and other such important things. Toby is currently on the lowest grading and will be performance managed by "The Zed".

Swiftly moving on we arrived at the Fairway Buoy in company with the front end of the class 3 fleet. A move over to the main land shore helped our cause as we rode the lift in towards North Head. Once at Hurst we had to pick our way through the Trap. Class 4 back markers and the Class 5 fleet. Whilst doing this Great Scott did a desperate dive along the beach avoiding the Trap and catching up a good 20 boat lengths on us. After Hurst we were able to position Oz between Great Scott and the line giving us both a close finish with line honours and 2nd place to Great Scott. Not far behind us followed the rest of the class 3 boats moving both Great Scott and Oz down the ratings to 3rd and 4th on Handicap.

As usual the JOG crews met up at a designated watering hole where stories of daring do and in Andy Hill's case rock hopping were swapped. Some of the crews then descended on the Royal Solent Yacht Club for and excellent £10-00 for as much as you could eat curry selection.

Report from Arcsine, Class 4

When Kathy asked me in the bar in Cherbourg whether I'd like to do a double handed race on Arcsine it took me about 30 seconds to ditch my mountain biking plans and say yes - double-handed sailing is great. So Saturday morning found us motoring to Cowes for the start. I'd not sailed on Arcsine before - how hard could it be? - so Kathy talked me through all the possible manoeuvres, which were complicated by the choice between a small symmetric spinnaker (wooled, dip pole gybe) and the assymmetric (gybed outside), which we'd tamed in a snuffer.

All went swimmingly at first. Kathy got us a good start, near my usual sailing friends on Longue Pierre, who had been giving us "helpful" advice (along the lines of "clip the halyard to the tack") before the start. We gybed a few times to clear our air, stay in the tide, and keep the island side of East Lepe! Our gybes had been going very smoothly until Yarmouth, at which point the tack line decided to unclip itself from the sail. Fortunately the wind was light, so Kathy eased it and I grabbed the tack and reattached it. We had great fun swopping gybes and position with No Doubt. We carried on gybing in the lane of favourable tide to Needles Fairway and were in the middle of our last gybe, a few hundred metres from the buoy, when the tack line unclipped itself again. We decided to snuff the kite, but the kite had other ideas and wrapped itself around the forestay. I managed to wrestle it onto the foredeck, but the kite was clinging to the forestay with dogged determination. Undeterred, we rethreaded the genoa into the tuff luff above the mess, hoisted and were off on the beat to North Head, with Kathy doing a grand job to concentrate on steering while her crew sat on the foredeck untangled the knitting.

The race then became a tactical race against the tide. We were in two minds whether to keep away from the stronger tides near Hurst (Deb's "funnel theory"), or seek the tidal shadow of the bank, so we let the wind decide and tacked on the wind shifts. At Hurst, we shorted tacked between about 1 and 5 boat lengths off the beach, in the company of Blazer, who overtook us, then we retook them and No Doubt who crept ahead, kindly pointing out the location of the Trap by sailing on to it - many thanks. Our game plan was to stay on the mainland shore until we were sure we could lay the finish. We sailed on, and thought we'd overstood, but the tactic worked well and once the tide kicked in and we cracked sheets to cross it in the least time we found we'd called it well and overtaken No Doubt, on the water if not on handicap (well done guys). A quick tidy up and it was time for a drink at the the undesignated watering hole - Andy Hill's Only Just - shortly followed by the designated watering hole - the Bugle.

Report from Tearaway too, Class 3

The forecast Friday night seemed to indicate a breeze of 12 knots, building through the morning to 15 or so. Coming over from Hamble we had about 12-13 knots and, once again a bit short crewed, we decided to opt for the number 3, knowing we had a long downwind run to change our minds.

The start was a bit conservative (ie. Skipper was line shy) but we were making reasonable pace in a clear wind but with a wind speed down to about 6-8 knots, sometimes a bit less. Tactically we were aiming to just jibe the angles to keep in the best tide but the symmetric spinnaker boats were able to just run a bit deeper and we were struggling to stay with the fleet, never mind hold our handicap. Njos, who had returned to the line, came bustling through and, looking behind, we only had one or two boats behind as we crept out of Hurst Narrows. Arriving at the Fairway buoy Minx had got in a bit of a muddle and were pushed the wrong side whilst struggling to clear away her cruising chute whilst boats arriving on starboard jibe were jockeying for position to get a good rounding. In the middle the skipper called for a jibe on to Port, followed by a change of mind, followed by another change of mind, a "get it down now" moment and finally we somehow got past the right side of Fairway and collected ourselves for a long beat against the tide. Needless to say, the no 3 had been replaced on the way down with our largest genoa, a number 2. Now in 15 knots we felt a bit hard pushed initially with just 2.5 people on the rail but persevered and soon saw a reduction in wind speed back down to about 12 knots.

We had rather hoped the fleet would bunch up a bit with the adverse tidal gate but had to wait until Hurst to see the fleet sat in a strong tide and not much wind, all kindly waiting for us. We took one look and decided not to get involved at the back of the pack and followed Alchemist, Longue Pierre, Whistler, Only Just and Strumpet across to the Island side for a bit of short tacking in waters we don't know at all! We all did our best to keep out of each other's way as we dodged to and fro and some helpful remarks were exchanged across the water! We missed the rocks, unlike some and, looking towards Hurst, saw Juno firmly stuck in the Trap. We dodged out to miss Black Rock, aimed for the end of Yarmouth Pier, watched Flying Boat bounce on the bottom as she tried to hide from the tide amongst the moorings, and finally finished 3rd from bottom! At least better than last.

The dog stayed happily in the stern cabin for most of the trip but all the excitement when we tied up in Yarmouth encouraged her to try to kill a child, poo on the dock and generally be in the way! Mental note, get more mentally stable dog next time!

Overall, we thought the course was good fun if a little bit trying when beating back but finish times were OK and there was enough interest trying to short tack to the finish to keep us happy. Roll on tomorrow with the promise of more breeze for the race home.