Weymouth (via Needles)

A few minutes before the start we noticed that the tide had already gone slack at the Gurnard cardinal buoy end of the line and was now west-going across most of the line.  The need for an island shore start had gone, and we decided to punch through the middle of the line keeping options open to duck south following the class 4s and 5s if the tide ran against us.   Andrew called the time to the line with Vasco’s help and with less than a minute to go decided to back the Genoa against the already-rigged pole to stop us going over the line.  It was clear that the tide was now strongly west-going along the whole line.  A gybe to clear the Genoa from the pole, a bear away and set and we had a great start first across the line with Fi working the kite hard to keep us up to speed and Smithy working hard to keep the main powered up...  Well done again to Andrew, our tip top starting helm.  NJOS was watching us very closely just a few yards behind, and when we heard a voice calling the race officers on the VHF to ask if everyone was clear.   Julie said loudly, ‘I bet that’s the NJOS lady!’.

We enjoyed the run down the Solent, and measured our progress with a centre channel course against OMG’s call to stay to the south most of the way.  We crossed them several times, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, but a good call by Julie to stand on for a lift on the island side west of Yarmouth finally pulled us clear ahead as we rode the tide past Hurst and along the Shingles.  Vasco and the skipper agreed that we wanted to cross the Shingles as soon as possible, and with an instruction to tack back at less than a metre of depth we headed across earlier than most.  At 0.9 metres we turned back and went on a little further.  Floating Voter tried the same move, but seemed to turn back pretty sharpish – we wondered what their depth sounder showed.  Skipper asked Vasco if we had enough water if we threw away the 1M margin and he said yes.  We tacked back and were clear across with a bit less than a metre under the keel.   Compliments were made about the size of the skipper’s cojones and his faith in Vasco.

 The route west looked great, as we were clearing Anvil Point on the same port tack, and Sean disappeared below to attend to the luncheon arrangements.  His home-made chilli con carne was declared most excellent...  a good thing too as the catering supplies were not going to last much longer.   NJOS and OMG were now a good half mile or more behind, and Floating Voter was a few hundred yards further south and behind.  Floating Voter stayed a bit further out, and slowly inched ahead of us and we had to keep telling ourselves that they do have a faster boat.  

As we approached Anvil Point the Skipper looked at the horizon and said that there was thick sea fog ahead.  The crew on the rail thought he was joking, but half an hour later we were sailing in 150 metre visibility and it was getting worse.  Julie and Andrew took turns on the helm to keep focused in the difficult conditions and for a while the skipper was rumoured to be driving, but the fog was so thick that nobody actually saw him.  The wind started to die, and with no clear picture of what was to come, and the inevitability of kedging for a while, we decided to aim inshore to a spot that was exactly up-tide of the finish so that we could drift down there with the tide if the breeze never kicked back in. 

We didn’t see another boat for hours, although we heard motoring and laughter and VHF retirements.   The only boats we saw were Shades of Blue at anchor as we ghosted past, and SX Girl towing another yacht (Mint Julep?).  We ran out of food except for some very old Milky Ways, we ran out of water, we had no sleeping bags and we carried fewer sets of oil skins than we had crew.  It was a cold miserable night at anchor.  Mark developed a hacking cough on the bow and clearly needed a break, and so he buried himself under the spinnakers in the forepeak.  Fi and Sean were shivering and threatening to use the rest of the sails to make clothes, and Smithy proved himself the hero as he stayed on watch for all of us waiting for a breath of wind. 

As soon as we had slack water we lifted the Fortress anchor and began the long drift to Weymouth.  We found the log was unreliable at speeds of less than 0.3 of a knot!  Julie squealed with excitement at one point waking the whole boat when she shouted, ‘1.7 knots, YES!!!!’.   The pressure to retire was substantial, and the prospect of eating the last Milky Way for breakfast did little to lighten the mood.  Sean had a train to catch to Edinburgh and Julie had to drive to Cornwall in time for lunch.  Skipper lied and said he would retire at 0530 if the finish was not in sight.  Fortunately it was, and so we drifted down to the finish with OMG at least a quarter of a mile behind us as they ghosted along the Portland Harbour wall and Longue Pierre was half a mile ahead of us.  Another yacht with a red kite up was creeping along behind us.

The breeze (zephyrs on the mirror sea) and tide were taking us down onto the big orange tanker at anchor, and we lost out on our advantage over OMG as they inched forward while we tried to pinch in less than a knot of breeze to clear the tanker.  We tried a flat Genoa, we tried the kite again, we settled on the very lightest Genoa, and we thought we had our very own band of wind to get us to the finish ahead of OMG, but then a clear band of breeze appeared ahead of them and ours disappeared.  They tacked for the line ahead of us and beat us there by four minutes.  It was a tight finish and although they beat us it made for a cracking end to a very long and tedious night of racing.  How Floating Voter got there so much sooner is an official mystery.  We think their more southerly course towards Anvil Point must have kept them clear of the worst of the fog, or did they head south instead of north once they were in it?  Intrigued....  will they tell?

Thank you to Peter and the team for all their hard work, and for making the right decision to delay the start.  Perhaps next time the Race Officers could do something about the fog? ;o)

Race Report from Old Mother Gun, Rob Humpreys One Off, Class 3

Having left our mooring in plenty of time for the race, the one hour delay gave us the opportunity to cook a real fried breakfast before the start. So egg and bacon baps were devoured with relish by our depleted crew.

We had a good start and had a position in the maximum ebb tide past Gurnard with a clear wind. One of the missing crew was our navigator, Nick who was required at home for family duties (Huh!) In consequence we just managed to miss the ledge at Gurnard after the owner (Phil) dived below for a quick look at the laptop to check the depth then ordered a rapid gybe onto starboard! We managed to get the position we wanted close to the Island shore and were running under spinnaker with Night Owl and Floating Voter neck and neck but further north.

The increasing tide and shifty wind meant that we were down to the No.1 genoa by the time we got to Hurst. We could just about lay St Albans on port with a slowly dying wind. Off St. Albans we ran into a thick fogbank and just managed to creep our way into Weymouth bay before the wind died completely and the tide started to flood. As we watched the GPS it became apparent that we would need to anchor. We were still in 65ft of water but out came the anchor and after a few minutes it caught.

Most of the crew retired to bed, leaving Ryan and Phil to stare into the fog. We stayed there till about 2330 when the tide started taking us north and then west. The sea still looked like a duck pond with not even the slightest trace of catspaws or ripples on the surface. We then had a very slow beat into Weymouth, spotting Night Owl about a mile ahead but well to leeward. There was no sign of Floating Voter.

Not knowing how long other boats had been becalmed or even been in the fog we didn't know how many boats there were around us but we could see a couple of sails where we thought the finish line was. OMG finally crossed the finish line at 0614, only twelve hours late! Having missed the pub in Weymouth and with appointments to meet, it was decided to return home to Hamble. Many thanks to Peter and JOG for the excellent organisation. Sorry to keep you hanging around!

Not entirely uncivilised start times so early onto the boat and over to Cowes fortified by wonderful hot sausage sandwiches from Di and of course our usual coffee and Somerset apple brandy, (yes it used to be Calvados but we have gone patriotic in the recession and are backing Britain). Clearly other boats were less prepared so an AP went up to allow some a quick trip into Cowes for bacon sarnies both on their own account and for those boats that had cash rather than credit cards (J2eau remember your cash next time!). After an abortive attempt by some island lads to sink a couple of our boats moored just off the beach by holing with rocks the AP came down an hour later and off went the racing sequence.

We had of course carefully planned our strategy Thursday night which looked likely to be port pole once clear of the line and beach hopping until the tide started running in our favour. As usual this got completely ignored in favour of a starboard pole and the apparently better wind slightly off the island shore. Not a bad run up to the start line despite at least four out of five crew members doing bow in the last four minutes and 10 seconds late but ..... where was everyone else? Tactician, (the author actually!), forced to own up to a programming error on the watch so second attempt required and by now we had lost the guy under the boat so ran into the start whilst re rigging the boat. Whatever we had hoped our strategy to be this was held up a bit whilst we hung onto the kite and got the ropes sorted and then into our first gybe with the skipper running up to do bow and the tactician driving through the gybe. It would have been perfect had I not misheard the call from forward of the mast and in fact was – it was just the driver hadn’t actually done anything yet and the pole was still perfectly positioned on the old gybe so we went back and then re gybed , this time with the pole – all good practise and impeccably executed by the crew.

By now most of the Sigma fleet and the rest of the class were demonstrating why we should have stuck to the game plan of tide cheating inshore but then a corridor of breeze took both J2eau, Draig o'r Mor, a few others and ourselves down the deeper water and up level with the leaders. After moaning about the amount of food taken for five our skipper called for the curried turkey wraps to be passed around with nectarines for afters. Audajious came up from leeward to cross just in front of us to dial into the same breeze which did look to be paying until the wind shot forward to the North just after Hampstead Ledge with no sign of changing back to anything resembling a kite further down the Solent. At this point it looked as if a couple of Sigmas had pulled out in front of the calls with an excellent lead having clawed their way up the shore line and we had begun to pass the back end of the Class 5 fleet. Dropped kite and went to white sail. Bit of a pain being the smallest boat in class and a big concern as a drag race all the way to Weymouth at 30 foot was not going to be a winning card.

Cross tacking up the island side using the inshore tide coming up to Yarmouth and beyond with a massive lift immediately off Yarmouth which had us on the same heading as the previous tack pointing at the Needles. Round about Sconce J2eau took a long tack across to the North shore which clearly would not pay and that was the last we saw of them as they went charging off in front! A couple of long tacks to work our way up to the Needles and we could not shake a very smart blue Sigma 38 – Persephone? – who constantly crossed about two feet behind us whether on port or starboard. Crossed tacks again and again in front and behind with Draig o'r Mor who then disappeared off into the horizon just before the Needles. The first class three boats started coming through just as we came up to the Needles and a number of our class appeared to go either in the North channel or cleared across the Shingles. Drawing two metres we stuck to the safe option and went out to Bridge to clear the Shingles and beyond before settling for the long leg across to St Albans.

Once happy with the course we settled on a clear tack to clear St Albans and watched with interest to see how we did against the boats further in. As we hit the pork pies and chicken legs with almonds slices for dessert SX Girl came past shortly afterwards followed closely by Cajou whilst Old Mother Gun disappeared off into the distance on our leeward side. We finally caught up with Moondog away off leeward who appeared to be leading class five but once there we couldn’t seem to get past her. Shortly after that it truly was curtains as the sea mist closed in and visibility dropped to one or two boat lengths, initially with the old patch of clearer visibility but later with nothing. Hit the flapjacks and fortified coffee to restore morale. Almost cleared St Albans until about two miles off when we sailed into a mega knock and tacked back out. Thereafter it was a one tack pony and an eerie collection of fog horns and voices in the mist, (no we hadn’t opened the wine at that point). Rob demonstrated a particular talent for horn blowing so took over that job for the rest of the day and could the boat doing the knock knock jokes in the fog please let us know the punch line as they wouldn’t finish the entire joke!

Safely crossed St Albans Head at a steady three knots – tide not wind sadly – and kept a steady west course but with a falling tidal strength and still next to no wind. About 5 pm the wind went back just a fraction enough to go for the asym and we accelerated up to about 1.5 knots as Flying Boat from Class three motored past towards Weymouth shortly followed by Eclipse. At the same time Phantom lived up to her name and loomed slowly out of the mist struggling to fly their kite and unable to get high enough to generate the necessary apparent. At this point the GPS showed an ETA of about 1 am the next morning whilst still in the favourable tide and we had to consider that the tide was due to change in the next hour or so. Having realised that we were down to six bottles of wine between the five of us and that we were likely to be late for the 8.45 pm dinner with J2eau an emergency meeting was held and the engine switched on. After motoring for about an hour and a half we entered Weymouth but still with no visibility until we actually passed the mole at about twenty feet when the curtain lifted. We joined the only other boats in which appeared to be Eclipse, another boat who I can’t remember and Imperator who were just mooring and finally opened the wine, cheese, pate and olives. J2Eau arrived shortly afterwards and a good night was had by all.

Casting off at six the next morning after the elephants on the outside had gone at four am, (“Do you think there is any one on this boat” is best not shouted above the hatches until you actually know the answer to that boys!), at least the fog had lifted on a beautiful sunny day. We and the convoy of vessels leaving Weymouth had a good view of Old Mother Gun, Moondog and Night Owl coming into the finish line. Well done guys for sticking it out but you did miss a great lemon sole at Vaughans. The stunning Dorset coast was a lovely backdrop and the spinnaker bags acted as great hammocks. The flat calm made eggs, sausages, bacon and black pudding a very easy job and we got a few domestic chores done on the boat. Fortunately the wine lasted up the Solent with a grandstand view of class super zero of the IRC championships looking a little surprised to see a racing boat passing at 10.30 with wine glasses in hand! Having perused the results I am comforted to see that everyone in Class four took the same sensible approach retired so none of us have to run through the what ifs but here is hoping for more wind next time round! Thanks as ever for the impeccable port organisation.

Report from Shades of Blue, J110, Class 4

After a very early start, and with a stop on the M3 to purchase the papers so there were enough crosswords and puzzles for the whole crew, you could say the crew of Shades of Blue were more than a little sceptical about the chances of reaching Weymouth. Poole was thought to be optimistic, and Yarmouth or Lymington were mooted as more likely. Still, the repair to the spinnaker after Deauville looked neat, and there was plenty of food, water and sun tan lotion on board, so off we set. The postponement meant a short stop in Cowes, where crew communications broke down somewhat and two lots of ice creams and doughnuts were purchased.

Even at 9am ice cream doesn't keep, so it must have been the resulting sugar rush that made us so eager to start, we were almost 5 minutes early; luckily the Skipper spotted the fact that all the other boats were going in a different direction and I think we managed to make it look like a practice... didn't we? Anyway, once the gun had gone, what a glorious first few hours. Sunshine, more wind than was forecast, and we had a great gybing/tacking dual with Jibe all the way down the island shore, including one very quick one as the boat in front hit Quarry Ledge with a bit of a thump. Hope everything was OK guys. Learning from the Poole race a couple of years ago, we took the extra push round Hurst, and ended up almost neck and neck with Jibe at the Needles. Skirting the edge of the Shingles, where Chris decided it was too scary for anyone else to see the depth and hid the display unit in his pocket, things were still looking good and it was time for the next layer of suntan lotion. What a mistake. I'm not sure if anyone else noticed when it became very grey and the edge of the planet all but disappeared, but I don't recall seeing much past Bournemouth!

Still, the wind kept up, and we managed to get all the way to St Albans head (or so we were told by the GPS) without hitting anything, listening to the various fog horns and the odd wave of laughter and chatter, interspersed with a random power boat hurtling past, most of them going way too fast for the conditions, and with the fog getting thicker and thicker. It was here that it all changed, as the wind died completely and we stopped, along with another couple of unidentifiable grey, yacht shaped objects - possibly Jibe and Longue Pierre, or possibly someone completely different. Tacking out in an attempt to get some more breeze offshore worked a bit, and we managed to work the tide quite well for a bit longer. The kite went up at some point - I have no idea where as it all looked the same by then - but then the kedge went down at about 18:00 as the tide started to build. Buy this point the radio messages could be heard with increasing frequency as various boats retired. A crew conference was held about an hour later, and after the logistics of waiting for the tide, finishing somewhere around 3am, and then potentially having to leave at 5am were discussed, we too decided to motor in. A real shame as we were doing so well and really thought we were in the chocolates this time.

We never did spot the two massive tankers in the entrance, and harbour wall was a bit of a surprise when it loomed up in front, but once we'd negotiated that we rafted up next to Mint Julep - hope the prop/gear box problem is solved soon - and joined other various crews and Peter and Sandie for a well earned drink in the Weymouth Sailing Club. A real disappointment, but still a fun race, and a fantastic well done must go to those hardy few who persevered. You deserved your points!

Sunday morning dawned with the usual (for Weymouth) headache, slightly jaded feeling, brilliant sunshine and the prospect of a long motor home, so I took the opportunity offered and sloped off in the car!

The usual thanks to the start box team (with small request to make it more obvious you've spotted us going through the identity gate please, the usual arm waving and flapping about didn't seem as enthusiastic this time), to the finishing team and to the Weymouth Sailing Club.

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