The week started with the following email from Peter: -
“Sarah – please stock up on Sturgeron!” this was due to the early forecast of a beat the whole way to Jersey in 25knot winds, as the week progressed the forecast eased.
Sailors are a rather superstitious lot, and I was concerned that the crew would not be subjected to the usual pre-race routine. As the race start time was 19:40 hours on Friday evening there would be no pre-race porridge ( or no more nails as Simon previously described it), no pre-race dinner at La Dolce Vita ( we have got a 2nd the two times we have eaten there pre race!) and so on. This weekend also saw the grand opening of the new executive bunks, there is certainly no diversity policy on this race yacht. In order to qualify for these bunks you need to be less than 40 cm across the chest and weigh less than 9 stone! It is also rather assuring for the people hoi polloi below to know that should it all go Pete tong you would probably only gets Peter or Austin landing on you!
We gathered at HYS on Friday afternoon and went through the final job list to ensure Playing Around was completely ship shape before the race. As we motored out to the start the wind funnelled down the Humble but as we reached Cowes it eased off to be a SW F3. After watching the first start struggle to hold spinnakers Richard and Peter opted for what is becoming to be a rather useful sail indeed – the Jib Top, but we kept the heavy Masthead in the cockpit just in case.
We started rather conservatively under the near springs tide and flew out of the Solent where we changed down to the heavy number 1. Whilst on the reach the first it took 3 different crew members to light the oven, in the end Chris was victorious which meant that Kristy’s stew was able to start to heat up and flood the cockpit with a rather good aroma. Whilst this was going on the rail were entertained by a firework’s display off of the east coast of the Island. As I alluded to earlier this race was going to be different as we beat up the eastern side of the Isle of Wight we must have put more tacks in that 2 hours than we had for the entire of the previous races. We opted to stay inshore to stay out of the worst of the tide, and had tacking duels with several other yachts. We finally reached St Catherine’s and tacked off to the SW across the Channel.
The watch system started around 11 pm with Green watch going below for some rest.
At around 0730 I awoke from my sleep conscious that the boat had been tacking backwards and forwards and couldn’t work out why as we were now on the long beat across the channel. We then heard from the watch on deck that they had seen a yacht without a mast and went to investigate. Peter raised them on the VHF and they confirmed that the vessel had been dismasted, the crew were safe and that they were going to make their way back to Weymouth or Poole. Peter offered to relay that message to Solent coastguard, as he tried raising them on the VHF I lay back and chuckled to myself as he said initiated contact. I was awaiting a response and laughter in the background (private Playing Around in joke) of course the Coastguard would never do that but we never got to hear this as we were too far out to get a response.
As we went through the day we performed several sail changes each time perfecting the tack change (hoisting the new sail inside the old one, tacking and dropping the original sail). Around lunch time we reach les Hanois and the course dictated a tack into a rather horrible black cloud, Peter called for the number 3 to be ready and set up on deck. Chris and I duly obliged and just as we had got it ready the wind increased so we changed down in rather bumpy conditions. The wind did get up to over 20 knots but then eased off to around 16 knots, we were underpowered for the conditions but we still had a massive dark cloud to sail through, thankfully after around 30 minutes the wind picked back up and we were more appropriately set up for the conditions.
As we proceeded around Guernsey the waves just grew and grew, one wave hit myself and Simon on the rail and charged us into the Primary winch, drenched Chris trimming the jib and soaked the helm! Other race yachts then started to appear on the horizon, and from what we could see they were class 0. We were storming along rather quickly averaging around 10 knots under the jib top having so much fun that we let the off watch have a couple more hours asleep! As we approached the finish we heard a couple of other boats in our class radio Ocean one, to say they within 5 miles of the finish and a rather cheeky Puma Logic ask the race committee how many other yachts in IRC 1 had finished…... Peter contemplated the heavy Masthead again as were now downwind, although the seaway was large and rather lumpy, then around 2 miles from the finish the jib top fell from the top of the mast. The crew ran forward and dragged the sail back on board, and we then set up for the heavy masthead, the sea was very lumpy and I wasn’t looking forward to a bear headed hoist in over 20 knots of breeze, luckily the masthead had been wooled so it shot up the mast and exploded open, with all the weight at the back of the boat, the pole low the helm and trim did well to keep everything controlled and fast as we surged along the coast to the finish. We dropped the kite early as there were lots of rocks around and finished bear headed.
After finishing we entered the port of St Helier to drop Ting Tong (Richard) off as he had a “customer meeting” to attend to and planned to fly home on Sunday, we were originally going to drop him and leave, but several factors changed that, we missed the tidal gate at Alderney, the crew were tired and it was still blowing 20knots out, so we stayed in St Helier enjoyed a quick meal ashore left at 0300 the next morning.
Even though we had warned our neighbours along the raft that we were leaving at 0300, they were not as pleased as we left as the raft was now 5 yachts deep. We motored gingerly out of the harbour, and navigated along the coast, just after sunrise when we were preparing another new job list. I let out a shrill as I saw a fin appear in the water about mid ships, Bob jumped, and Chris laughed as we now had two dolphins swimming alongside the boat playing in the bow wave….and yes it was captured on camera! I think it was nature’s way of rewarding us for getting up so early!
The journey home was the complete opposite of the way out, we had sun and no wind which allowed us to dry the boat and sails out. It also enabled us to have some good relaxing crew bonding time. It was during the return trip where we saw different members of the crew appearing in places that they were not normally familiar with, from the bow, galley and some guys even started to use the heads on the stern. We also enjoyed a great BBQ lunch and a can of lager – yes another first on Playing Around. I was relived that the sausages were still on board as I had been told that Bob had spent his spare time hunting the yacht for the “Surprise” that I had promised him! Just before we entered the Solent we tried out the emergency steering which made us all appreciate how difficult things would get if we ever needed to use it in anger! Ehab and Kirsty were certainly more co-ordinated than Simon and I …or was it that they had learnt from our mistakes….
All in all it was another great weekend with totally different conditions for the race and the delivery home. Our manoeuvres are getting slicker each time we race, we are certainly becoming a yacht to be reckoned with and I feel proud to race onboard Playing Around.
Results
First 40.7, 3rd IRC 1, Irc Overall
Green Watch – Peter Robson, Chris Sandison, Bob Weare, Simon Sparkes and Sarah Kafetz
Blue Watch Austin Scully, Richard Franks, Ehab Abbas, Mike Green and Kirsty Johnson
Report By Sarah Kafetz aka Gordon Ramsey!