A fun weekend. Great gig Friday night just outside Cheltenham, then a brilliant evening Saturday night playing to a packed out full house at The Railway in Bristol. But a late one. Band finished around 0030 Sunday morning, so I was home and in bed for around 0330ish.
Almost amusingly, according to Strava, the gig at The Railway was a better workout than either Saturday morning's karate or Sunday's racing. But in any case, I was back up, showered, shaved, kit bag packed and back on the road for 0920 the following morning to get to the Club for 1000 to meet Alex and his dad Mark and rig the GP14 for the day's racing.
The wind was a bit lighter this week, and a lot steadier. South, veering southwest, 12 knots gusting into the high teens, but building significantly as the day wore on. The usual two races, a pursuit starting at 1100 followed back to back by a general handicap.
We were slow rigging the new boat again, so about three minutes late on the water and late to the start for the first race. But we soon caught up with the back of the fleet and started to work our way through the backmarkers. Conditions were easy as we bore away around the second mark of the course onto a short run.
Me: "Shall we put the kite up?"
Alex: "Definitely!"
The hoist was almost smooth, except the kite's sheet tangled around the prodder on the bow. No idea what you call it but that's my name for it. It's essentially an inconsequential looking six inch extension that looks like a tongue depressor you'd find in a doctor's office, and it's purpose is to stop the spinnaker lines from slipping under the bow of the boat.
In this case, said line had wrapped around it whilst we were rigging and was now preventing the launch.
Advantage of a twelve year old crew is that they are light, very nimble and up for anything. So I eased he halyard a little and sent him scampering out on to the foredeck to untangle the sheet, then Alex safely back in the cockpit, completed the launch.
At which point it was time to drop it again, and harden up amongst the crowd onto a very close reach up to the next mark.
The usual marks of the course at South Cerney are numbered buoys at various relatively static points around the lake, working clockwise from 1 to 6. The morning's course was a beat to a port rounding at #4, a close reach to round #1 on port, a run down to a port rounding at #6, a very close reach to a port rounding at #4, a beat up to round #2 on port, followed by a long run down the length of the lake to gybe around #5 on starboard.
The second hoist for the stretch down to #5 was much better so we enjoyed a long, easy run under the kite to the gybe mark, but left the drop a little late so had a rushed, inelegant mark rounding. Second lap, and and inelegance of the last drop paid us back when we hoisted the kite again for the short run down to #6 and the kite came up hour-glass wrapped in a nasty figure-of-eight.
Alex is a Cadet sailor and so has a lot of practice crewing with spinnakers, although the Cadet is a significantly smaller boat with an accordingly smaller suite of sails. But he was admirably calm working out the tangle in the brief time and space we had on the run down the leg to the rapidly closing mark, working the sheets, and talking me through easing the halyard to help whilst I tried not to collide with any of the surrounding Lasers and Solos also running for the same mark.
The kit straightened out and flew clean for a brief moment before we had to drop it and harden up onto the next let.
For the the third and what became the final lap the hoist was clean and the kite flew well, but when we got to the drop, the halyard jammed and the kite refused to come down. We rounded #6 and hardened up onto a reach, letting the main spill, Alex taking the tiller whilst I stood up on the foredeck to try and work out what the problem was.
I could see the spinnaker halyard wrapped around the head of the genoa, possibly caught on the shackle of the sail's halyard, but couldn't work out how to free it out on the water. The safety boat loitered nearby, asking if we needed assistance, but we declined, and limped back to land at the pontoon near the committee hut.
Alongside, I released the rig tension and we stepped onto the pontoon with the intention of capsizing the boat so I could reach the tangle, but the wind filled the kite, and with the tension out of the rig was enough to pull the sail loose. Alex reboarded and stowed the kite, I untangled the genoa that was wrapped around the forestay, and we relaunched, me pulling the rig tension back on as we left the pontoon.
We'd dropped out of the back of the fleet, but hadn't missed a mark or accepted outside assistance, so as the race finished a few minutes later, we still took a place, albeit last with an inglorious 12th.
The wind built for the second race, but we'd untangled all the tangles and were getting quickly comfortable with the boat. We had a great start, on the line and moving as the gun went, in relatively clean air with just a solo to windward and slightly astern. We gradually pulled ahead and as the fleet tacked off on to port behind us, we followed, putting us clear ahead of most for the windward rounding.
The course remained the same, and the hoists and drops were becoming practiced. We had a few tangles on the beat with the genoa where it tangled with the spinnaker pole because we'd failed to stow it properly after the drop, but no more tangles or mishaps with the kite.
With the wind veering to the southwest, the long run down to the starboard rounding on the final gybe mark had turned into a dead run, so across the first couple of laps we had some valuable practice gybing with the spinnaker.
On the final lap, we rounded #2 and hoisted the kite, but couldn't lay the mark at #5 on a starboard tack. The conditions were getting boisterous as I called for the gybe, but Alex commented that things were getting too jumpy with the kite and suggested we drop.
A quick, flawless drop followed by a gybe onto port, just as the gust hit. The little boat leapt onto the plane and charged ahead as we trimmed the sails, slid back and hiked out to keep the boat flat and she flew down the leg. Back onto the rhumb line we gybed back onto port and closed up on the Solo ahead. A quick glance saw boats going down astern of us as they rounded #2 and up ahead we could see Garry's RS300 capsized and on its side with the safety boat in attendance very close to the mark.
We won an overlap on the inside of the Solo well clear of the three boat lengths needed to give us rights at the mark, but he made it very clear he wasn't going to contest. We gybed neatly between the stricken RS and the buoy, then hardened up neatly onto the beat to cross the line and finish.
Of the eleven boats at the start, two retired, and we took a very creditable 4th place. Happy with the result and very happy with the boat. Especially as there's lots of obvious room for improvement.
