Dog Days

Despite the best intentions of an early start to fetch Penny from the garage, trail her to the Club and rig and launch in time for the noon gun, my gig the night before and the crew's compulsory attendance at the Club's fitting out supper were always going to make the odds of realising such intentions long.

The forecast was suggesting light & shifty, so the day was going to be more about simply getting the Ent back on the water. Such conditions require a deftness and precision that we frequently lack in our enthusiasm, so we entertained no huge hope or ambition for the day's racing.

In the event, we did arrive and were rigged and afloat in time for the first race, but were a minute late on the line. Left struggling through the dirty air of twenty odd other boats, it was a frustrating race that left us with 15th place out of 24 and a cockpit full of water from where, in our rush to get afloat, I'd forgotten to check the  auto-bailers were both closed.

Half hour break back on shore, we bailed the lake back out of cockpit and, a couple of cups of tea later, set out for the start line again and the second race; a pursuit with a timed start. I honestly thought we'd be there with ten minutes to spare, but on arrival behind the line were rudely awakened by the realisation that we had less than thirty seconds.

Confusion reigned, and disbelieving my own senses I muddled about trying to decide if I'd somehow got the numbers wrong. The other Enterprises lined up and crossed the line on the gun and, still befuddled, confused and totally out of sorts, we inexcusably straggled along behind them, a good twenty seconds late on the line. The Lasers started a mere ten seconds later and made short, short work of us.

Not my most glorious of moments.

We then compounded our misery by kicking open the starboard autobailer during a rolltack, and the lake puddled around our feet once more. We finished 15th place out of 26th, possibly better than we deserved, but still frustrating.

Once more ashore, we mopped the lake back out of the boat again, then consoled ourselves with more tea, shared a mircowaved Ginsters "Meat Feast" slice for lunch and refuelled with a Snickers each (we do SO know how to live!) promising ourselves we'd be absolutely certain to be on time for the third and final race.

In between munching on our late lunch, I rigged up a cunningham with some nice "honey bee" yellow 4mm Excel Control line that I picked up at the Dinghy Show a couple of weeks ago (I've been meaning to rig up the cunningham for months now) and checked the jibsheet leads. They were far to far foward (this tightens the leech; not so good in light airs) so I shifted them back a fair few notches.

We then got on the water early, keen not to be caught napping a third time. The wind had veered significantly through north and dropped to a mere drift. About halfway out to the line, to our horror and dismay we heard the four minute gun. About half the fleet were still behind us and ashore, the other half sitting quite smug behind the line and ready. In something of a panic I belatedly set and started my watch's timer, and sync'd it in with the two minute gun, finally ducking behind the line with about a minute to spare.

A quick check suggested a heavy port bias favoured a pin-end start, but the fleet seemed to be stacking up on each other at the committee boat end. We ignored them and did our own thing, and hit the line bang on and moving with the gun, a conservative couple of boat lengths in from the pin and in clean air. It paid in riches, and we were first around the windward mark by close to half a leg.

I could wax lyrical about the chase that followed. Everything just seemed to work and everything felt just right. We slowly drew away from the rest of the fleet, dogged and threatened only by another Enterprise that seemed to close up whenever we were off the wind. Enough to keep us awake and on our toes, but Penny climbed away again everytime we turned back onto a beat, restoring and consolidating our lead.

So we redeemed the day, and out of the 19 boats that set out for that final race, we placed 1st. Our first win ever with Penny. I guess after my wife spent Thursday afternoon lovingly painting the boat's name onto her hull for us, it was only right that we give the rest of the fleet the length of a race to admire her artwork on Penny's transom!