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May 30, 2006

North Sea Race - Shorthanded

I had planned to do this years North Sea Race with Ian, a keen sailor from my local yacht club. Ian owns a 25ft yacht locally and was keen to rack up some miles and experience doing longer passages. We had planned some training sessions but time and work commitments interfered.

On Thursday the 25th the 2 of us left Burnham and headed for Shotley point marina at Harwich. We ended up doing a combination of sailing and motoring in sunshine. It was an easy passage.

On the day of the race Friday the 26th we woke up and locked out of the Marina. The starting area was busy and confusing and the 1st start was subject to a recall.

We got the 1st few marks out of the way, albeit slowly. As we started to reach towards Trinity Light Vessel and Long Sand Head we closed ground on the bulk of the fleet.

While things were ok Ian had lost a little colour and felt queasy, specifically when he ventured down below. Then, during a big jibe, Ian's hand got caught between the main sheet and a hand hold in the cockpit. Ian's hand became swollen quickly and he grew a large 6th knuckle.

While reaching towards South Galloper at 9 knots STW with No 3 and 1 reef in the main the wind briefly shot up to 30 plus knots and our in use reefing line snapped. Lots of flapping later everything was finally secured however with Ian still pale and his hand still very swollen (and bleeding) I thought it best to retire at get him home.

We made our way to Burnham and arrived at 0130 on Saturday morning.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but what a pity you can't buy it in the shops.. I made an appalling judgement call in taking Ian into the race with only the previous day's passage from Burnham to Harwich as his entire time spent training on NINJOD. Sorry Ian... Gosh.. What a plonker I am.. Nothing else needs to be said.. Rest assured, lessons have been learnt.

EDIT 01/06/2006

I recently discovered this link ... http://www.maib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/SB2%2D06%2Epdf

Posted by ninjod at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)

May 08, 2006

The Circle of Life

Things have a habit of repeating themselves. Having thought about my previous seasons and each seasons disastrous 1st race I was rather hoping that this year would be different. Unfortunately this was not the case; life's rich tapestry had the hump!

EAORA ran 2 events during the weekend just passed. The Pattinson Cup on the Saturday and the Ralph Herring race on the Sunday. I was originally entered for both. The plan was to sail both shorthanded with my father as crew.

Even with no wind the Pattinson Cup started out ok for us. We were not last, in fact there were a few class one boats behind us as we collectively drifted around the early marks. I had thoroughly enjoyed my little private race with "Inn Spirit", another class 1 with a similar IRC rating.

The shortened course announcement came from Offshore 1 and my father duly wrote the modifications down. For some unknown reason even though my father had written the course down correctly I refused to acknowledge that it was the correct course to be sailed. The give away should have been the point when everyone else went in a different direction, but alas no.. even then I wondered why they were all making such a balls of it.

Some considerable time later I realised my error and swore for a good 5 minutes. The constant down pour and my error filled me with anger. I corrected course and drifted towards the correct mark. Foul tide then got the better of us and rounding Swin Spitway became a dance that involved anchors, frequent kite hoists and patience, plenty of patience.

Determined not to quit I finished the race, albeit last. I then decided I would go home as anyone as angry as I was would only make an even larger mess of it in the following day's race, Ralph Herring would have to do with out me!!

Posted by ninjod at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)