I had a late night Saturday night, a great gig, but hard to wind down after so didn't really get to sleep until around 3am. This used to be easy when I was younger, not so much now, but we're still having fun so it's worth the cost. When I did crawl my way out of bed Sunday morning, I messaged Amanda to let her know I was running 20 minutes late. I got to the Club around 1020hrs, by which time she'd got the Albacore out onto the foreshore and had pretty much rigged her.
Fourteen boats launched for the first race, split between three fleets. Ours, the general handicap, was the largest with seven competitors. The course was a good one; a windward start, a nice long first beat down to the bottom of the lake, a broad reach back on starboard, a gybe close to the bank then a port reach across, followed by a second beat back to the bottom and then a dead run back to the final mark behind the clubhouse, trying not to hit the committee boat on the way.
The wind was blustery, low to mid 20's with the occasional lull and more frequent gust, but steady in direction. The Albacore handled it well; with lots of rig tension and generous use of the kicker she seems very manageable in a blow as long as you're prepared to put the work into hiking and spilling the main where you need to, so as to keep her as flat as you can.
The first race was good. A very well sailed Laser 2000, crewed I think by a father and son, led us a good chase around the course. We gained on them easily going up wind, but off the wind they handled their big asymmetric like pros, reaching from gybe to gybe downwind, leaving us for dust. The rest of the fleet quickly fell away behind us both.
We finished with a very creditable 2nd place, the 2000 soundly beating us in the end on both the water and after handicap.
The second race didn't go nearly so well.
About thirty seconds before the start, hardening up to lay the starboard end of the line, hoping to hit it at speed just as the signal sounded the start of the race, we got slammed by a gust. I don't really have any excuse; my head was elsewhere than on the wind and sails, working out our approach to the line, half an eye on the clock, half an eye on the half dozen other boats all vying for the same spot. I was sheeting in fast, I should've been quicker spilling the wind.
So the gust knocked us flat. I rolled backwards over the hull and landed on the centreboard, Amanda went into the water between the hull and boom. From my perch on the board, jib sheet in hand, I stopped the mast from sinking and quickly pulled her back up. She was utterly swamped.
I opened the bailer and the transom flaps, untangled the lines and tried to bear away to begin flushing the water out the back, but there wasn't much room between us and the lee shore. As I hardened up, half a mind preparing to try to tack the swamped boat, another gust hit us and we were down again.
I'd been too far back trying to trim the boat to get directly onto the board, so accepted a dunking and swam around the hull to the centreboard. Amanda threw me a jib sheet, but by the time I'd got myself braced for the retrieve, the mast had bedded into the mud.
Slowly, slowly, the wind swung the hull around until the mast was pointing to windward. The windage of the hull and my labours were then enough to free the mast, but as she came up, the boom swung viciously over and, unsurprisingly, she topped straight over to leeward again.
We pulled her back up one more time, but by now she was firm against the lee shore, pushed up against the reeds, the centreboard dug into the rocks and mud at the bottom of the lake, pinning us in place.
We took the mainsail down. It's possible we could've rescued ourselves from there, but the race for us was over anyway, so rather take any further risk of damage to the boat, with a bit of help from some friends on the shore and a line from the safety boat, we towed her off the lee shore and back to the landing area.
Unfortunately, in one of our capsizes, I suspect the third, the boom was driven into the lake bed and buckled. It could've been worse; a boom is significantly cheaper than a mast to replace, and most importantly, neither Amanda nor I were damaged, except perhaps in our pride. I don't think I've ever had to accept a tow off a lee shore from the safety boat before.
The gust that initially flattened us was clocked at 34 knots; if we'd been anywhere else on the course, or even with just a little more sea-room between us and the lee shore, I think we'd have been fine.
I think that's the heaviest weather we've sailed the Albacore in and, damaged boom and pride aside, I was very pleased at how she handled. There were times when the gusts hit as we beat to windward that we were both fully hiked out and spilling so much main that it was doing little more than flogging, the jib alone and the top third of the mainsail driving the boat forward and up wind. But drive she still did.
And off the wind? The reaches were amazing. Spray everywhere, the boat literally skimming across the lake on her bow wave. Our fastest reach clocked in at 12.3 knots.
I'm hoping for a little less wind next weekend.
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