High Winds in the Harp - Glorious day

This Saturday (31st October) was a great days sailing. 

Tom & I saw forecasts of 14 knots, gusting in the 20s and 30s at times. It was worth thinking about - should we go out?

On arrival at the Harp, we reminded ourselves that we may not be able to sail again for some time - since it was rumoured that England would be in 'Lock-Down' during November. So this would be a rare opportunity - so we decided to go for it.

As we launched 13941 into the Harp, we were almost the only team that was prepared to risk the high winds.

I must admit that I was a bit nervous, but Tom was a great crew, and we managed to keep the boat flat - most of the time.

Sarah (Tom's other half) took a few photos and video of us - it does look a bit calm from that direction, but once we were in the middle of the lake, we were able to get the boat on the plane multiple times. 

We came in after an hour for a quick break. We were advised that there was a problem with the safety boat, so we hung around on shore until they were able to get another safety boat ready for supporting the plain sailors (who went out with full reefing), as well as supporting ourselves. 

The second session that morning was not quite as enjoyable - the rain had began to arrive, and with it some complex wind shifts. But we kept going, and stayed upright - it was great fun.

After lunch, we looked at the conditions and decided to join in the racing. 

The first race was a 2-1-8-7, against a south-westerly wind. Before the starting gun, we did some practice gybes, and promptly capsized. I was able to get on the centreboard, and we were able to join the racing successfully, with no issues, but it was a reminder not to be too confident. 

We made a cautious start (why do I always do cautious starts????) and were mid-fleet along the first leg. Tom did a great job of keeping the boat flat, and we were fighting along side Andy Shrimpton and Andy Wadsworth for some of the time. As we rounded no 1, we flew the kite, which was another confidence booster. 

As time went on for that race (which was nearly an hour by the time we finished), we gradually lost position, and slipped back to the bottom of the fleet of about 8 boats.

I thought we were going to be 'not last' at one time, when Andy Shrimpton lost it and capsized, so we had another boat behind us. 

In the final leg, we lost the starboard pulley block for the spinnaker, so no more spinnaker flying for the day.

After we rounded number 1 on what was to become the final leg, we were overtaken by Andy Shrimpton and Roger, who came screaming past with a full kite. There was no way we were going to catch them with only 2 sails. 

So we were last, but had really enjoyed ourselves. 

We started preparations for the second race, with Tom helming this time. As we did, a massive gust came through, and the Cunningham sheet and genoa lead-string caught up in the genoa sheets. It took ages for me to untangle them, so we started really down the fleet. 

But I was getting tired, so Tom agreed to go in - we had had a great day, but I did not want to chance things too much. 

At the end of the day, we had had a failed spinnaker pulley, a patch needed in the Mylar main, and also a burgee was seriously bent on the top of the mast (probably due to the mast-head boyancy). But underlining all of that, we had had a glorious time, got some real experience of high winds, and a massive boost of confidence. 

Will lock-down keep us off the water next month? Who knows? But we had had a day worth savouring.

Commodores Cup 2020 - encouraging teamwork

I have been gradually easing myself into sailing over the last few months.

The Welsh Harp Sailing Club have put together some very sensible precautions and systems to ensure that everyone is safe, based on RYA advice. For example, any racing is at owners' risk, and we have to carry a mast-head bouyancy aid in order to prevent dinghys becoming inverted in the case of a capsize. This takes some of risks away from having safety boat crews who are limited, due to corona virus.

Nevertheless, I did not want to take too many risks going back onto the water. So for the last few weeks I have just contented myself with single-handed practice in 13941. I have done this for a number of weeks on early Saturday mornings, and then come off the water before everyone else piles in for the Saturday Training and/or Racing.

As my own confidence grew about the level of risks, I also helped out with Dinghy Instructing in a recent RYA Level 1/2 course which was run by the Welsh Harp Sailing Club. 

Finally, I began to tag along with the "Plain Sailing" practice, and provided some Dinghy coaching for a family with their own GP14. The fact that this was a transom-main rigged boat did add to the excitement !

So having built up a bit of confidence, it was time to get back into racing.

The opportunity for this was the Commodores Cup, which is an annual event for GP14 and Lasers, run in the form of a full regatta over a complete day. 

For health reasons, we did not have any lunch provided, and tea and cakes were missing. But it was still an attractive opportunity.

Tom agreed to crew for me, and is also keen to crew for me going forward. He is married to Sarah, who crewed for me a year ago. Tom had also previously crewed for Lesley Kaye. Lesley was also a mentor to me over the years, but had sadly moved away to Portland - which is a great place to sail. So I had a crew member who was very competent, which really helped my confidence.

My aim for the day was to enjoy the time, and "feel the boat", rather than trying to intellectualise everything that was happening.

Wind was fairly mild, but we would need to hike out at times. It was varying in direction from the South or from the West. So we knew that we could not use one lap of a race as too much of a guide for the following lap. Wind was force 1 to 2 only.

For the First Race, the course was 2-1-6-7-3, which built a kink into the course, which required a bit of forward planning. It looked like a pin-end biased line. However, I suspected that we would have more chance with clear air on the committee boat end. I was proved right, as we were level with the fleet up the first beat. However, we tacked too early for the mark, and were caught up on a port tack against a lot of other boats. Prudence dictated that we dropped back. This put us mid-fleet. 

I was pleased that we were "fighting" with the lower part of the fleet for much of the time. We were able to make a couple of moves at the leeward mark, and gain a place or two, and then lost that on the beat. (we need to find out why this happened). All in all, we finished 9th out of 12 boats.

The Second Race had the same course, but this time we ducked some of the fleet to find clear air at the start. But we were lower down the first beat than previously. Tom's spinnaker work was really helping us keep our pace. I was having to concentrate hard to bear away in gusts, but head up slightly in a lull, in order to keep the wind flowing over the sails. Again, we were 9th out of 12.

For the Final race, the course was changed so that there were more spinnaker gybes, and the course was shorter.We were caught up in a gaggle of boats on the committee boat end during the start, and probably crossed the line last. So any a gain was going to be an achievement. We dropped back to 10th. But were rewarded by the fact that we had beaten off attacks from behind, and were catching other boats ahead. 

In conclusion, Tom & I totally enjoyed the experience. We had taken some boats in the good times, and lost at others. But confidence was high.

I'm hoping that we will be able to build on this for the future- hopefully move up the fleet a bit.