Last race of 2016

30 October 2016

Sadly it was the last race of the year today, and an early departure for a 1030 start.

Jonny was with me for the first time and we found a fairly steady F2 from the East. Five boats came out to race. Dick tried to get the race off a few minutes early as we were all milling around out there ready to go, but the start was a bit chaotic due to several getting caught by the tide and general confusion around the gate start so he had to abort the start and do the countdown all over again.

On the restart we were pleased to be first away and began a long beat to Steel Can out to the east, beating into the easterly wind and into the tide. All boats seem to determine that the best course was to tack quite close inshore to keep away from the worst of the tidal current, the GPS smartphone track log below illustrates what we did. Jonny was on the helm and seemed to be enjoying it. We felt like we were almost inside the beach huts at one point but we were probably several metres offshore all the time!

After an hour of that we were in third place as we went around Steel Can and began a reach out to Outfall. We looked behind expecting Cabre under spinnaker to catch us but we were about ten minutes ahead of them and they didn't really gain on us which was most gratifying!

Around Outfall and another reach back to the finish line, a bit more wind now perhaps F3 so we were doing a good speed as we crossed the line, still in third place after 1h 38m elapsed time.

Back on the berth by 1220 we looked for lunch in the clubhouse only to find no catering today - so I didn't hang around the clubhouse as much as I'd have liked to, heading off to the petrol station for a sandwich.

Elsa was third today and fourth overall in the 2016 series, I'm happy with that. A new mainsail is ordered for next year and Ron in Cabre has ordered a whole load of new kit to try and get back towards me so we're all looking forward to 2017!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Re-powering project Spring 2023

Image
24 June 2023 Following difficulty with the gearbox last year (it wouldn't select easily into forward, and then only turned slowly) a quick look in the box showed little oil and evidence of loose filings. Not good. My friend Spencer at the club offered to slip the gearbox out over winter while she was ashore and have a look. In order to do that, he had to get the engine out and into the cabin. Spares for that gearbox are not available. A reconditioned replacement gearbox would be £600 + vat. The old Sea Panther engine, which has a history of being difficult to start, was already out. So after a bit of thought I decided not to put the old engine back in and instead to source a new engine + gearbox. Spencer has re-powered a few boats at the club and was kind enough to find time for this project.  Marine Enterprises are very helpful on the phone but items on their web site bear no relation to what they actually have available. So there was no Beta engine around. But there was a Perkins
Read more

New rudder

7th Sept 2013 Keen to put the repaired rudder to the test in the cruiser race today, I met Sarah at the club at 11. Lots of kids were sailing in the river today with many of the Arun grown-ups teaching them. For this and other reasons, many regular cruiser race teams were not around. We need 3 boats as a minimum for a race and by 1115 it was decided that we did indeed have 3, so we set off for a race start at 1200. As an experiment, we hoisted the main in the shelter of the harbour and motor-sailed out through the turbulence of the entrance. I was worried about keeping control with the main up but it was fine. Once outside we shut off the motor, unrolled the genoa and assessed the conditions. As we emerged from the river it was a sunny day with about F3 winds, that'll be fine we thought. After 15 mins or so, and well outside the harbour into the sea, the swell was huge. Must have been 5 or 6 foot high, and the wind suddenly built up to F4 or even F5. Elsa was plunging up a
Read more

Cowes weekend 2023

Image
 4 July 2023 With Bay Leaf's new engine running well we set off for the weekend in Cowes for Round the Island. About 12 boats from the club were going this year. Sue was with me and we both had a space arranged on our friend Stuart's boat Moontide for the race, but travelling to and from the island in Bay Leaf. 29 June - Littlehampton to Gosport We met at the boat around 0800 Thursday and loaded all the clobber. High water at 0811 gave us a departure time around 0900. Starting the engine on battery 2 I noticed the red light stayed on, indicating lack of charging, which was a small worry but we had battery 1 if we needed it. Setting that thought aside, leaving harbour at 0905 we set full sail on a starboard beam reach, heading 240 degrees.  On the GPS it looks like there's a direct line to Boulder / Street but Selsey rocks are in the way, and sure enough the Mixon pole came into sight around 1040. Passing it on our starboard side abeam at 1110 we turned east towards the Looe
Read more