Damp Wednesday

Yesterday was the final tune-up race for the Weds Night Series at RYC. The conditions were very British. Overcast skies, a steady but light’ish breeze, a light drizzle and temperature in the 50s. Reminded me of the Solent in June. Made me quite homesick.

There were only 12 boats out to race as opposed to the 30 we get on a good Wednesday. Why such a light turn-out? The weather!

OK, quite a few boats aren’t ready yet but there were even fewer boats than last week. What a bunch of wimps!

We, with the blood of Nelson, Drake and Raleigh coursing through our veins aren’t put off by a bit of rain. (Note: In my case I only have 50% of these chaps’ blood running through
my vascular system as I am 50% Lithuanian). A slight threat of weather and the Colonials opt for a Yankees game on TV instead of sail in slightly damp conditions. Pshawww, I say!

As it turned out, it was a quite pleasant sail on Wharf Rat if not entirely successful. As it was only our third outing as a crew we are still finding our way, blabla, excuses, excuses, more blabla.

Starting with the positives. The boat handling was better and a friend on the RC boat observed later in the bar that we sailed a lot better. Secondly, we recovered from our issues of which we had two:

1. Lack of clarity about the start: We were poised for a very good start. David, our trusty skipper positioned us nicely in the pre-start for a good spot at the favored end. One minor issue, we were a minute late. We haven’t quite mastered the starting sequence yet and so we mistook the starting gun for a gun a minute before the start (which apparently doesn’t exist).

2. Halyard and Spinnaker separated: On the one and only spinnaker raise, the spinnaker got to the top of the mast and the shackle promptly popped open and down the big colorful, flappy thing came. After a few minutes of shrimp-catching, we got the spinnaker in and hooked on the genoa halyard and we were back in business. On the positive side we reacted quickly, averted greater disaster.

Shit happens as they say and this will actually get us to do what the skipper, David has wanted to do and lose the shackles for a good sturdy knot instead.

Overall, we placed 7th out of 8. Ironically the only boat behind us was skippered by another Son of Nelson.