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Cowes to Cherbourghttp://www.flickr.com/photos/jogoffshoreyachtracing/Persephone, Sigma 38, Class 4
Team Persephone lined up for the first time this year ready for these first 2 offshore races of the 2010 campaign. We still had some string sorting to do so were down at the boat ready for the proposed Friday start, despite the mid Thursday call to postpone for 24 hours.
The strong winds blew through and Saturday morning was wonderfully benign…milky spring sunshine and a gentle southerly breeze, but no warmth! Galliver II was making their debut and joined Zanzara, Marta, With Alacrity and Persephone in class 4 of JOG. Numbers for class 4 held up well despite the postponement which seemed to have reduced class 5 to just 2 boats starting before us.
The start went well…kite up and away before the rest of the fleet. Our plan was to sail free in the now building flood tide, go north of the Ryde Middle and then come up to North Sturbridge and sail efficiently through the forts. And so we did just that, making steady progress compared to the fleet and gradually stretching out a small lead on the other Sigmas by the forts. With a flooding tide, I felt that an inshore track under Dunnose would be right, after rounding Bembridge Ledge. With Alacrity started to catch us slightly on the last tack into Bembridge, going well inshore and showing that the tide was going to be a more significant factor for the next few hours. So we loose covered WA and set off to Dunnose. Round the point, we both had to tack out and WA had more confidence to cut the corner…my charts were telling me that they were going to hit rocks at any moment and so we gave the point about another 4 boatlengths and rounded side by side with WA. Slightly further back, Marta and Zanzara were duelling but maintaining boatspeed and looking good.
After Dunnose, the wind started to shift slightly right, so that a couple of hours later we were, in effect, line astern with WA and had dropped back a few lengths as well. We were all waiting for a forecast shift right, and trying to get as far west as possible for the moment the shift came. Soon, the wind dropped off, leaving a lumpy sea and little in the way of drive from the sails. Then we had the shift…but hard left, not right…so we put up the spinnaker and sailing at about 90 degrees apparent, were able to point the boat directly at Cherbourg.
By this time, we could see no other boats having split with WA and left Marta and Zanzara in the slop south of Wight. The shift seemed sustained and we sailed for hours, fast, before the easterly, now 10 to 12 knots. By late afternoon, the wind was becoming variable and there were some interesting stormy squalls about. One caught us napping and pushed us a mile or so west before it as we soaked down wind rather than dropping the kite.
Then back to white sails and finally the right shift came, just as darkness fell. This time the wind was stronger, reaching nearly 22 knots as we broad reached into the finish under white sails. Longue Pierre (Class 5) and With Alacrity had both sailed more westerly courses despite the easterly wind we had, and that was proved the more efficient course as they beat us in by almost an hour. Marta came in around 15 minutes after Persephone.
One of our crew had been below in the lovely centrally heated cabin since Dunnose and awoke to join us for an unplanned but very welcome chilli on board. Report from With Alacrity, Sigma 38, Class 4 After a 24 hour postponement to let some big winds pass through, five Sigma 38s were up bright and early on Saturday morning for the 07:30 start of the first offshore race of the season with JOG. Galliver II, under new ownership, were at the start along with Persephone & Zanzara out for their first race of the season. Marta & With Alacrity completed the line up for the Sigma 38s who made up one third of the JOG class 4 fleet. Although the worst of the wind had passed over we were still expecting a brisk and cold beat into 20 knots of mainly southerly breeze which was forecast to move from the S to SE before clocking around to the SW and eventually NW in the evening. So much for the forecast, the start was in just 6 knots of breeze so plans for the No 2 were abandoned as we dug out the No 1 and contemplated the possibility of a shy spinnaker reach to the East off the JOG line. Persephone won the start and immediately hoisted their kite to reach off into the middle of the Solent, we hung on to the No 1 and sailed higher to cut the corner off Cowes before also hoisting the spinnaker to head East down the Solent. At the forts Persephone had the lead by 5 or 10 boat lengths as we headed up for the beat to Bembridge Ledge. By Bembridge Ledge we had pulled back to round just a few boat lengths behind Persephone as we all tacked onto port and cracked off towards the tidal relief off Dunnose. With Marta & Zanzara just a hundred or so metres behind, we marvelled at how closely matched Sigma 38s are as the four of us tracked along at exactly the same speed. We hugged the shoreline around Dunnose to finally squeeze past Persephone into a 100 metre lead as we all headed offshore towards Cherbourg in a SE breeze. With a lumpy and confused sea left over from the wind from the previous night, keeping the boatspeed up was a constant challenge as one by one most of the crew succumbed to seasickness. I felt for Galliver II who were having a tough introduction to offshore racing in a Sigma 38 and guess this is why they and Zanzara eventually retired and headed home. After an hour or so the wind got very light and headed us gradually until we were sailing 30 degrees west of Cherbourg. Persephone, Marta and Zanzara tacked off to the SE but we hung on to the west anticipating the forecast wind shift to the SW. Much to our surprise the wind filled in from the East and eventually almost NE so rather than beating we were reaching at 7.5 knots straight towards Cherbourg. Over the next few hours we sailed through two 30 knot squalls which kept everyone warm as we changed down to the No 2 and single reef – just as we had the boat settled the breeze reduced and we were shaking out the reef and changing back up to the No 1! By late afternoon we had the French coast in view and the tactical situation was fascinating. We had lost sight of the other Sigma 38s who were off to the East but the forecast defying breeze was still from the East which would work in their favour. As we had also reached most of the way across the channel rather than beating we were going to arrive a good 4 or 5 hours earlier than expected so we were constantly recalculating the tidal offsets as we closed on Cherbourg. 10 miles off we saw Longue Pierre ahead and to the West sail into a new breeze and heel over hard on starboard. Finally the forecast SW was arriving and we were ready for it, tacking onto starboard with the No 2 up just laying the finish to arrive in plenty of time for last orders at Cherbourg YC. Very pleased to discover we had made it in first Sigma 38 and first in IRC class 4, think we were saved by the SW wind eventually arriving – could have been a very different outcome if the wind had stayed east for another few hours ! Report from Substitute, Salona 37, Class 3. As usual the best laid plans for a new season did not go as smoothly as anticipated. A new boat had been ordered to replace Draig’Y 2.0 and was due for delivery in plenty of time to fit out and shake down for the new season. Unfortunately due to a fault with the resin the new boat was recalled to the Salona factory and a brand new loan boat was shipped out to the UK (fantastic customer service). With a week and a half to go the pressure was now on to try and get the boat ready for the Cherbourg race. Every one at Salona, Bucklers Hard Boat Yard, North Sails, Race sailing and lots of drafted helpers worked day and night to rig Substitute and fit her out for offshore sailing. Thursday arrived and Bucklers Hard Boat Yard ensured that the boat was launched with the systems tested in time for us to carry out a quick test sail. The decision to postpone the race was music to our ears as it then allowed us to take Substitute out for a longer sail on Friday in some testing conditions. The test sail was short lived due to some of the items not fitting as well as they should have, however, due to further fantastic customer service on a Good Friday a clandestine meeting took place on the M27 in order for spare parts to change hands. Finally with the spares fitted and all systems go we were able to relax and have a pint in Gins Farm. Friday night and the early hours of Saturday the wind howled the rain poured and the crew snored (had to put that in). As dawn approached the clouds started to recede, even to the point where the sun specs had to come out, for the start. We made the decision at the start to hoist our Asymmetric a) to see what it looked like and b) to see how close to the wind we could sail with it. On both accounts we were pleased and we agreed that with a Spinnaker pole of the correct length we would be able to set it closer to the wind. The current pole is 30cm too short for our rating and the cut of our sails. After a while we decided to go back on to whites to ensure that we did not loose touch with the other class 3 boats. Substitute really started to make good ground and by the time we reached Bembridge buoy we felt quite comfortable with the way she was going. Not long after this point an almighty bang came from the Rigging. First inspection revealed nothing, however, a clanking from the mast showed the intermediate diamond hanging loose. The only decision we could take at this point was to retire from the race. The fault appears to be undersize swages on both the port and starboard intermediate diamonds. (We will see how good the customer service is from the spar makers this week) I hope that every one enjoyed the race and that we will see you all on the Nab Tower race. Thank you to all the race officers for their hard work and well considered decisions.
We had a fantastic race over to This week I’ve attached links to some videos of the race I’ve loaded to YouTube which may be of interest. Pilot asked us to hold our course and then rerouted a ship around Cerulean just after start of race - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYi2pNVIbe4
And of course thank you to the race committee.
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