[Public-List] Surprise's first race of 2014

[Gordon Laco]

Hi again - I need an editor.

In the exciting windward battle with MAID MARION in the story below, we were
only about 10 meters to weather of her, not 50.... And I have to say that it
is true, I was very eagerly anticipating the savage cruelty of slamming the
door in my friend's face if we'd only been able too....

G



On 22/05/14 8:55 AM, "Gordon Laco" <mainstay at csolve.net> wrote:

> Good morning friends,
> 
> After a late start, we finally got SURPRISE in the water last week.
> Caroline and I sailed her up the coast and celebrated our wedding
> anniversary at anchor in one of our favourite places ­ unseasonably cold
> Saturday night, but our woodstove kept us warm.
> 
> Last night we raced for the first time.  Clint, Peter, Steve and I clambered
> on board (those of you coming to duke it out at the Syronelle will meet us)
> and we motored out with the rest of the mob in very light air.   We (well to
> be truthful, just I) couldn¹t resist harassing our friends in their
> engineless 5.5 Meter class boat as they coaxed her along toward the distant
> start.  Throttle wide open, towing as large a wake as we could manage, we
> circled them while shouting Œhey John, look! I¹m a motor boat!¹.
> 
> There was a delay while the committee struggled to cope with the dramatic
> wind shift that occurred just about when the start sequence was due to
> begin.  Eventually the flags and horns started ­ the behemoths (and light &
> fast boats) of A Fleet started, then we settled into our machinations for B
> Fleet¹s start.  
> 
> I made a perfect start, only about 45 seconds early.  We were forced to
> reach down the line and headed up when the horn came just in time to save us
> the ignominy of running past the end of the line.    We crossed right on the
> horn, but way down at the unfavoured end with the rest of the heard at the
> Œgood¹ end.    We hung on for a bit so as not to make it too obvious that
> I¹d made a start other than the one I intended then flipped onto port tack
> and crossed the sterns of the rest of the fleet.
> 
> A couple of jogs later, we found that when we crossed the fleet we¹d caught
> two boats... Hope was arisen and with lighter hearts we set our sights on
> the next boat ahead of us ­ the dreaded Aloha 27 MAID MARION, sailed by the
> ex-RAF deHaviland Vampire jet fighter pilot now gentle mature gentleman who
> is one of our main rivals.
> 
> At the first windward mark rounding, we were only one boat length behind
> him.  The spinnaker went up faultlessly (oh, I guess I did pack it properly
> last year....) we knocked off a perfect gybe, and were neck and neck with
> MAID at the leeward mark.  We set ourselves to the long trudge to windward
> again... This time we could lay the course to the mark on one tack due to
> another big wind shift.  The apparent was up to about 10-12 knots;  SURPRISE
> was bounding along at  5.5 knots hard on the wind.  Hard flattening of the
> main gave us another tenth of a knot and we began working our way up on
> MAID.  We were about 50 meters to windward of her and about a boat length
> behind.   Oh the eager anticipation of victory!  Sometimes we gained,
> sometimes they held their lead.  I was desperate to stay high enough above
> them that we didn¹t get lee-bowed by them... I¹d bear off minutely for
> speed, then steal up again to hold my distance.... All the time thinking of
> that flush of pleasure I¹d feel when we climbed far enough past that I could
> bear away, lock them in our wind shadow and slam the door in their faces!
> But I am getting ahead of myself.  Actually we never got there.
> 
> At the windward mark we were right beside them.  We could have passed a note
> by hand to them but of course both crews were too busy.   We were neck and
> neck with our spinnaker pole almost touching their boom end all the way down
> and it came to pass that they got us by a second or two.
> 
> However, there was no depression.  We¹d had a terrific battle, and who
> knows, maybe we¹ll get them next week.  How did we do in the fleet?  I have
> no idea yet;  such is PHRF.
> 
> What a terrific night, we motored back to the club all grins.
> 
> Gord #426 Surprise
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