Southern Championships - Some Progress

I have to be an optimist. Not the dinghy, you understand - that's a small kid's bathtub, in case anyone did not know -  but the glass-half-full type of optimist.

Why? Because, try as I might, I cannot progress beyond the back half of the fleet.

Last weekend, I had the privilege to race with Simon Carman, who has kindly agreed to crew for me at the GP14 Nationals in Looe in August.

As an optimist, I took comfort from the fact that we made 12th place out of 17 in our second race, and that the boat felt fast.  Simon's a great crew - he spots technical things that I miss, and he is happy to call tactics, which means I can focus on getting the boat moving.

But on the pessimistic side, we are in last place in most of our races, and I wish I understood why.

Maybe we don't keep the boat flat enough?

Maybe it is my irritating habit of 'pinching' into the wind when I don't have enough boat speed?

Was I using too much kicker? Or not enough? Was the boom in enough during the beats, or was I stalling the sails by pulling them in too tight?

Someone please tell me.... !!

With our experience, we should be mid-fleet by now. It's very demoralising being relegated to the back markers.

But I need to be an optimist.

Brightlingsea was a great place to sail. We had 2 races on Saturday, and then three back-to-back on the Sunday. Glorious sun, 10 knots wind, and enough swell and gusts to get us planing on the reach during the end of Sunday.  A chance to get valuable sea experience in advance of the Nationals.

WHSC was well represented - it seems that the club is really getting out-and-about these days, so it is good to have company.

Apart from the time when my watch stopped, we were able to get some good starts, and were pushing through the fleet to the first mark.

It was great to be able to fly the spinnaker through the gybes - a skill we are beginning to master. The spinnaker launches and drops worked well, although there was one occasion where we were seriously threatened by a group of Merlin Rockets who were a lap ahead, and gunning for the same leeward mark as us!

In short, I think we are beginning to work together as a team. I just don't want to let the team down. Any suggestions on how to make the boat go faster, please send answers on a postcard.

A few more sea races, and the Nationals is looming up.

P.S. Thanks to Hannah for the photo.

GP14 Nationals - here we come !

We're booked in.

The GP14 Class Association just announced that they sold their 70-boat allocation for the 2017 GP14 Nationals in 29 days! This makes it now officially the most popular since 2004, which was a couple of years before I joined what is now the Welsh Harp Sailing Club.

This year, the National are at Looe Sailing Club, in Cornwall, on 6 Aug - 11 Aug 2017. I hope to stay with relatives in Cornwall that week. I suspect that bookings will be hard to come by in Looe that week.

This will be my second Nationals. The first ever time was in 2015, in Brixham, Devon, when the fleet was about 45 boats, and the sailing was in Tor Bay. This time, the fleet will be significantly bigger, and the venue is more open. The World Championships were held there a few years ago, and the waves were the stuff of legend.

Joining me in 13941 will be Simon Carman. Simon has crewed for me a couple of times this year already. He has previously done some sea sailing as a youngster, and is just returning to the sport. So he has loads of experience and confidence. Although we were back of the fleet at the club racing the last couple of outings, I think we will gell together well as a team. His wife, Gill, also sails, but it is Simon who is the real "competitor".

Our plan is to build on our teamwork on Saturday morning practice, and club racing. We are also hopeful that we can do Tuesday racing during the summer as well. It will all be time on the water, which will help us get our techniques honed. For sea experience, I want to go back to Tollesbury this year, and maybe Poole, which is the week before the Nationals.

I've been back at the gym, with help from Andy Howell, who has been a Personal Trainer for me for a number of years. The emphasis for the next few months will be on cardio and building "recovery time".

The Welsh Harp Sailing Club has had an amazing turnout for the Nationals this year. A total of 12 boats are signed up. The list includes some of the best sailers in the club:

• Tomasz Szkola
• Steve Cooper
• Maciej Matyjaszczuk & Jim Dimond
• Edward Coyne & Szymon Matyjaszczuk
• Andy Wadsworth & Andy Shrimpton
• Roger Walton & Helen Allen
• Lesley Kaye & Nick Masters
• Richard Connett
• Ruslan Scutelnic ("Scooter") & Alexandru Scutelnic
• Lydia Evans
• Alistair Lambert & Karen Wilson

I think that makes WHSC the biggest club represented at the Nationals this year.

The social events will be something to look forward to, as well.

I intend to keep a blog going as we head towards the big event...

Bloody Mary 2017 - The Drifting Regatta

After a fairly uneventful period of sailing, the new year 2017 started off with the Bloody Mary at Queen Mary Sailing Club. It's a great venue, always well organised, and this year there were 244 boats attending.

Hannah and I were able to get some practice in the Wassal handicap race on 1st January (we did manage to stay ahead of the final Merlin Rocket), but this was a much larger, and longer event.

I had tried to learn lessons from Last Years Regatta, where the winds were fairly strong and the course was very complex. So we arrived really early, got the boat together in good time, and were able to pick up on course notes, which were duly gaffer-taped under a piece of waterproof plastic, just in case...

This year, the Welsh Harp Sailing Club were out in (almost) force, with 4 boats from the club, including Steve Cooper, who ended up 44th in the entire fleet. Most of us were in the photo in the QM clubhouse beforehand.



We had problems with the spinnaker last year, so extra attention paid to rigging was required...

The weather forecast had been for slight winds, disappearing to virtually nothing after an hour or so. But a glance out of the window suggested that the wind was strong enough to be exciting - maybe we were in for a repeat of the last year?

The "Blue" group were launched (boats about 20 mins behind the first gun), and we managed to get orientated and try the line. At the 24 minute gun, we had good speed, and were close to the start, just ducking one boat and then heading off to the right hand side of the course.

I'd set up the "RaceQs" GPS system, and we were later able to review our first beat against Maciej - it looked like we had better boat speed at times, but were not  able to point as high, so the other GP14 were beginning to pull away ahead of us.

The first beat was exciting, then it was time to launch the kite. We managed to keep position on the first downwind leg, heading to the red and white flag on top of mark number 2. But the wind was beginning to drop. The wind dropped. And dropped. There was no wind. And the RS200 asymmetric spinnaker boats were lighter than us and catching up.

We did manage to get round the second mark, and headed back upwind for the next beat, but we had had the best wind of the day - the "drifting regatta" was here for the day.

There were seven more marks in the next two hours.

By mark number 4 we were able to throw up the kite again. Although there were a few boats overtaking us, we did seem to have some good boat speak - in the circumstances. But, of course, being a heavy boat, the GP14 was not ideally suited to the conditions. The lighter boats had the advantage.

The winning boat was a Firefly,

We ended up 188th place out of 244 boats that took part.

Not ideal conditions, but we took part.  It was a great day - hopes for the rest of this year !

Time to get back on the racing scene

What happened since August?

Well you might ask. I wish I knew.

Certainly, as far as racing is concerned, it has been a non-productive time.

Since Poole, I seem to have taken my foot off the gas. As a result, I'm now at the back of the fleet again.

To be fair, September/October/November were taken up with quite a bit of training. Part of that involved running an RYA Level 1/2 course on behalf of the club. Then I attended a Senior Instructor Course run on behalf of the RYA at Queen Mary Sailing Club. So I am now a fully qualified Senior Dinghy Instructor - I just need to learn to sail a bit faster.

Had a great sail with Hannah today - we were back of the fleet, unfortunately, in fairly quiet winds.

At times like this, when you are at your lowest ebb as far as confidence is concerned, you need to find something - anything - that will help you get back into "the groove" and find that level of confidence and instinctive sailing behaviour that will bring you back to the front of the fleet. I've not yet found that.

Hannah was great - it's so amazing to see someone who has picked up sailing so instinctively. She has all the makings of a top-notch help and crew.

Her advice: don't think about it too much! Good advice, in my opinion, so I'll close off this blog and then look forward to the next couple of races. We are doing the WHSA Persuit Race tomorrow, and then the "Bloody Mary" again next weekend - here's hoping for that ingredient that will get us back into the groove!

Poole Regatta - not bad for pond sailers!

This was the third time that 13941 had gone to Poole, and I think it was the most enjoyable yet. 

It was also the first time for Hannah, who was suitably impressed by the size of the clubhouse, the size of the sailing area ... In fact everything was so much bigger than we have at the "pond" (Welsh Harp Sailing Club). The fleet of 30 GP14 was impressive as well.  

The first day was the traditional "round the islands" race inside the harbour. The first race was anti-clockwise. We made a cautious start, and were 2/3 down the fleet by the time we arrived at "Picadilly" in a broad reach. After having navigated the shallows, it was time to throw the kite and we were soon speeding up - just a couple of "planes" at times. 

I think this was the longest spinnaker run that Hannah has ever done. 

Around the far side of the island we noticed a couple of boats going a back to pass "Brownsea" marker. Should we have done the same? Hannah had been very thorough during the pre-race briefing, so we were fairly convinced that we had got things right.  As it happened, this was the second cause of confusion for people that morning. 

Not only had some people decided to round the "Brownsea" marker, others had been logged as "OCS" (on course side = on the wrong side of the start line when the starting gun was fired) and were therefore  penalised. There had been some ambiguity in what constituted the actual start line, as well as confusion about whether we had to round the "Brownsea" marker. A cynic might say that Poole allowed the confusion in order to help their own people to win, but I will not comment on that...

On paper, our final result was 18th - not bad for pond sailers !!

The afternoon was a classic case of "you are not at the Harp now.."; we were given plenty of time to get to the starting line for the clockwise race, but were less than urgent in getting out. Unfortunately, this was a slipway at Poole, not a massively long pontoon at the Harp. So we had to queue. The net result was that we were five minutes late at the start - hopelessly out of contention. Nevertheless, we pressed on and completed the course, with one other boat (who had been even later starting) trying and failing to catch us. Pity about the result, but a great sail. 

Sunday saw the winds pick up slightly, and we were both feeling a bit cautious, but set out for three "triangle - sausage - triangle" races over the late morning and early afternoon (note to self : make sure you pack some energy bars next time!).

The first race was a reasonable start for us - we called "starboard" on a number of boats, then tacked off to the right of the course. The tactical reasoning was straightforward - there was probably little significant tide impact, and it looked like the people going right seemed to know what they were doing!

Although we had reasonably clear air, and Hannah did a great job of keeping the boat flat, we were near the back of the fleet by the windward Mark. It was looking like a problem of getting good boat speed - so that is my "learning objective" for the next few weeks. 

The same pattern emerged in the other two races, with us coming in last each time. So some improvement needed on getting speed out of the boat. 

Going downwind, the waves were just choppy enough to play with. I had read about how to "manage waves" down-wind: find a suitable wave, then steer onto the leeward side and ride the "push" as long as possible. We don't get conditions like that at the Harp. So it was another chance for this "pond sailer" to have some practice playing with the wave conditions. It takes practice, but we caught a few...

The last race we decided to play it safe, and did not fly the kite. But more wave playing followed!

So the Sunday result was nothing to write home about. But it was immensely enjoyable. I think (hope !) I've learnt a lot, and that experience will eventually pay off. 

Both of us had sunburn to deal with the next day - but a price worth paying!

Congratulations to all those winners out there - hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. 

(Photo from Mike Millard of Poole Yacht Club - check out his Flickr site for all the photos of the two days)

Another crunch lesson

Hannah & I took out a club boat for Saturday afternoon racing last weekend (30 July). It was not a day I want to remember. 

The first race I had been able to pick up the wind on the north shore, and was able to capitalise on it, and overtook a couple of boats. But my skill was random. 

At the end of the first race, convinced I was on the wrong end of the finish line, I stayed on and discovered unexpected strong winds near the "pin", which helped us overtake the boat in front of us. Well, you have to get lucky sometime!

The second race was a disaster - I crewed for Hannah and plotted a port end start. I misjudged it, and poor Hannah had her first crash. It's always painful when that happens. I felt very upset and annoyed with myself. Hannah was following instructions. It was entirely my fault. It is likely to be costly to repair. 

When we had done our turns we resumed the race, at the back of the fleet. 

The only positive aspect was that we again finished the race on the "pin" end of the finish line, and this time overtook two boats to put us three from last in Hannah's race.  

Confidence shaken, we sat out the final race from the committee boat - trying to anticipate the competitors tactics. 

Next week is Poole Regatta. Will try to put this behind us and enjoy the racing.  

Tides at Tollesbury

The Tollesbury Regatta on 23rd July was an object lesson in how to get things right - sometimes!

There were less than a dozen boats in the fleet, and we ended up last (again!), with me trying to persuade myself that I was at least learning something. 

This was the first time that Hannah & I had sailed together in tidal conditions. Since we were planning to do Poole Round the Island and Poole Regatta in August, this was going to be a "dry run". 

I usually have a "focus area" each time I sail; in this case it was tide predictions. The conditions were such that initially the tide and wind were together. For the first race, we set off along the shallows, where hopefully the tide would be weakest. Seeing "Scoobie Doo" (13316) ahead of us have me confidence that we were doing the right thing, even though our boat speed was not as good. As it happens, James and Richard in "Scoobie Doo" eventually won the regatta. I also checked out our "RaceQs" gps tracker afterwards and was delighted to see how we had tracked to the shallows just where I had wanted. 

But it's all very well knowing the right direction - it does help to be able to make the boat go fast as well ..!

The other challange is that, in sailing at least, you need to see the evidence of your eyes, and not get fixated by your prior opinions.   The final race illustrated this.  

At the start of the final race, there were a gaggle of boats at the final 20 seconds, with a number of boats over. It was a general recall. At the restart, the same thing happened. I was left puzzling about how I managed to time the start, and everyone else was over.  Hours later, talking over the evening meal, the penny dropped - the tide had turned ! My entire tide strategy had been wrong for the last race.  

One-off these days, I might be able to get a handle on this sport.