Playing Around
RORC De Guigand Bowl Race 19/20 May 2007
Pick a forecast, any forecast…
Weather forecasts seemed to be on everyone’s mind as we worked our way through Simon’s substantial porridge (thanks Ehab for sand-blasting the pan clean) at the sort of o’clock on a Saturday morning that I would just never see were it not for sailing. Would it really hit force 7 out in the Channel on Saturday and then die away to nothing at all on Sunday morning? And would we have a chance to use the shiny new jib top? The final and, since it came from Richard the Navigator, most authoritative forecast brought some relief but also grounds for concern: no more than 20 kts due for the long beat, but not much at all expected later on.
There was certainly plenty of wind in the Solent. Peter and Richard engineered us a perfect start, Sarah not-the-chef-at-all-oh-no-definitely-not had the big masthead kite hoisted in the usual two blinks of an eye and with Bob and Mike on the kite and main respectively the boatspeed hit double figures in no time. We jostled briefly with our French rivals on the 40.7 Philosophie, cleared our air and were away through the forts.
Beyond Portsmouth the wind started to head slightly and with the tide sweeping us East as well we had to come onto a slightly higher course for the remaining 20 or so miles to RORC’s Ocean Safety Offshore Light Buoy. This involved first a peel to the fractional spinnaker – as a manoeuvre it wasn’t the smoothest but after a few wiggles and a bout of full-on kite-wrestling for Ehab and Richard at least everything ended up in the right place – and then a much slicker change to the jib top. Is the jib top fast? Tarka was pretty much right next to us when it went up: all they had by the time we reached Ocean Safety was a not particularly good view of our transom.
The wind was still up at around 20 kts and the tide was under us, so Ocean Safety came up very fast. We peeled to the no. 3 just before the rounding in preparation for the beat and with Peter having decided (at long last) to follow Bethany and Nick on the path to enlightenment and advance to the foredeck, it was left to Austen to pick a path through the cluster of smaller boats at the mark and get us over onto port tack. The green halyard’s block at the bottom of the mast chose this moment to explode, so we had to drop the headsail briefly and switch it to the blue halyard, but with that done we were still in very close company with the leading 40.7s: Holmen Paper was slightly ahead and to windward, Philosophie a few boatlengths ahead and on our line and Incognito just about level but slightly further to windward. The wind dipped briefly but soon moved back into the 22+ kts range and the French on Philosophie, who had optimistically started the leg with a big headsail, were forced to switch to a no. 3 like the rest of us.
We knew all along that this leg, Ocean Safety to RORC Offshore (40 miles at 253 degrees), would be the longest of the race: not only was it a beat, but RORC Offshore was almost directly upwind of Ocean Safety, so we would have to sail a lot more than 40 miles to get there! Thankfully the tide turned fairly early on in the leg and soon began to give us a big boost in the right direction. Unfortunately that also meant wind against tide: the waves became steeper and more frequent, and somebody stole the back off too many of them (sail up the front, fall off the back). Fine salami sandwiches from the kitchen of Sarah (definitely not the chef despite any passing resemblance to Gordon Ramsey – or was it Rick Stein, I can’t remember now) made a welcome appearance on the rail but with the amount of spray around it was a decidedly wet lunch, prompting Bob to remark “This must be what bread tastes like to fish when people use it as bait”. Elsewhere onboard, Neptune began to part some porridge from its temporary owners.
Different boats took different approaches to the conditions. We sacrificed some pointing in order to keep speed through the waves, as did Philosophie and Incognito, but Holmen Paper seemed to be able to sail higher without slowing down too much. Beating in these conditions was clearly hard work, but with a perfect blue sky, bright sunshine and 40.7s all around it was undeniably great racing too. Incognito, never more than a dozen boatlengths or so away throughout the leg, finally squeezed by when we had to alter course briefly for a ship. We held on as long as we could before altering course, but as soon as we did the ship itself altered course and the enemy was able to sail on unaffected. Incognito – agents everywhere!
Our arrival at RORC Offshore marked the beginning of the tactical stage of the race. Peter built a great case for setting a port pole and heading in towards the island. The foredeck team nodded enthusiastically and pretended to understand before scuttling off to the pointy end for refuge under the guise of moving the gear round.
We reached RORC Offshore at around 1900, an hour ahead of our most optimistic estimate, and with Simon filling Sarah’s shoes at the mast and Austen back on the wheel, popped the big kite up for a sleigh ride back to Ocean Safety. OK, that’s not really how it happened. We put the kite up, but it had a terminal wrap in the foot, so we quickly brought it down, ran the tapes and hoisted it again, whereupon the pole downhaul jumped over the pole and caught on the little metal bobble that opens the pole end fitting, preventing the pole from setting properly. So we let the pole forward briefly and flew the kite on sheets only (Peter – don’t think we didn’t see you sneaking onto the foredeck again), whereupon it rebelled and wrapped itself a few times around the forestay. The top secret kite-from-forestay unwrapping procedure was implemented and worked like a charm, and eventually we set off properly towards the lighthouse at St Catherine’s.
Only Playing Around and the French explored the port pole option, so the rest of the fleet soon disappeared from view. The French gybed back onto starboard early on though, so before long we were completely on our own. Clearly rattled at the extent of this separation, Incognito sent out another agent to keep an eye on us. Perhaps unwisely the pigeon arrived just after the oven went on, but with two trays of top notch lasagne prepared by Sarah (who doesn’t even know the way to the galley really, ’onest guv) we decided to spare it and try the honey-trap treatment first. Austen applied all his charms to the task, but the bird resisted, so Kirstie had a go too just in case it was a boy pigeon. Having obtained assurances that it wouldn’t give our game away to the opposition, the pigeon was released and, after a failed attempt to land on the mainsail, disappeared off towards the coast.
The gybe came just after 2000. It was a beauty and led perfectly into dinner, which drew even the most reluctant from their bunks. There followed fine wines and cheeses, vintage port and a rather peaty single malt, all accompanied by accommodating waves for a bit of surfing, a favourable-again tide and a peaceful golden sunset. And garlic bread. Although we couldn’t see any of the competition, the tide, the way the wind was moving and the advantageous angle of the waves gave us a good feeling about our position. The wind threatened to drop below 20 kts a few times, which gave Simon the opportunity for a bit of a workout pumping the main, and Green Watch again demonstrated its strength in depth with Kirstie working the spinnaker and Bob on the GPS. VMG to course (our closing speed on the mark) touched 14.5 kts at times, and by 2200 we had only about ten miles to go to Ocean Safety. Navigation lights started to appear as the fleet converged: there were plenty to the South and at least three behind, but only one ahead.
Headsail up, spinnaker down, pole down, gybe-ho and we were back on the wind again heading for Nab Tower. Now the wind really did begin to fade and the heavy no. 1 took over from the no. 3. A few sets of navigation lights went by travelling considerably faster than us: these were clearly bigger and faster boats, which meant that our tactical choice (and good speed of course) on the downwind leg had obviously paid off handsomely. The railmeat entertained itself watching shooting stars and life was good. The wind veered round to the North and then backed a bit and we only had to tack once to make the Nab, which we rounded just behind Philosophie and Meta Baron.
Had the race finished here it might have been ours, but as the first signs of dawn appeared to the Northeast the wind became patchy and variable, and as the distance to the finish line at Royal Albert decreased, so our predicted time to the finish rose. Eventually there was enough light in the sky that we could see the telltales without a torch – and also that the boat close on our tail was Incognito. We did our best but they caught a puff we missed and just slipped across in front of us. It was slightly disappointing to lose out dodging wind holes in the last ten minutes of a generally rather windy 20 hour race, but we did still manage to save our time on Meta Baron. Actually it could have been much worse: behind us Tarka spent 45 minutes looking at the finish line before finally drifting across it and by that time we had scoffed bacon rolls (bacon by Kirstie, bacon rolls assembled and served by Sarah “What’s a kitchen? Can I buy one on eBay?” Kafetz) and were half way back to Hamble.
We have now all but completed our qualifying mileage for the Fastnet. The boat has been just right in all of the conditions we have seen so far and the team is growing slicker by the moment. Bring on the next race!
Result: 3rd 40.7, 3rd IRC 1, 8th (of 59) IRC overall
Green Watch: Peter Robson, Bob Weare, Kirstie Johnson, Simon Sparkes, Chris Sandison
Greener Watch: Austen Scully, Mike Green, Richard Franks, Ehab Abbas, Sarah Kafetz
Report by Chris Sandison