A strong Southerly with a bit of east greeted us as predicted on Friday night providing plenty of action at the 6pm start for the long haul south. We opted for the pin end and were looking okay until Walk on the Wildside decided to shove us off the edge of the course. We rounded the day bouy in a respectable position but probably further back than we would have liked.
Everyone was heading well up of windmills mark and doubt was cast on the navigator as he gave the correct course (you doubters). We hoisted a kite and headed in the correct direction with only one other boat flying a kite but eventually others followed . We rounded the mark with windows absolutely trucking and almost out of sight as we began to bash through the confused and lumpy seas south. Thankfully there was some east in the breeze that meant it was straight to bouvard.
Windows was out of sight when news on the radio came through that they dropped their mast after a fitting let go. A pity as the race record would surely have been on the cards.
From here it was just business as usual with bums on the rail and a little uncomfortable with several members of the crew vanishing from the rail to do their evening prayers….at least I think that’s what they were doing on their hands and knees! Much entertainment was provided during the night when it was decided that a sail change was in order after “o damn” couldn’t get the boat going. Matt provided much needed motivation and the tactician completely lost it in fits of laughter for at least ten minutes when Captain blowhard decided to impersonate a blowfish or perhaps was providing a safety demonstration of how the inflatable life vests work, meanwhile the naviguessor lost power to the laptop with bouvard reefs all around us. Somewhat chaotic but quite entertaining.
After a couple more sail changes and dawn broke as the swell settled and it was smooth sailing from here into a more southerly breeze. By now the big boats had finished and thsourtherly just put some distance between us making it hard to get a good result.
We finished with a 4th on IRC at 8:15 am after Next factor, Knee deep (race record), and optimus prime.
No comments:
Post a Comment