A nice quick delivery trip upto Cowes on friday with a sprightly breeze behind us. Unfortunately the "Touareg" assymmetric spinnaker died about half a mile out of Weymouth.
The race itself was another breezy one, with the best start we've ever had in an RTI. We short tacked down the island side to cheat the foul tide and kept a good eye on the numbers. When we got to the needles the decision had to be made and I'd already said, half meaning it, that we were going inside the Varvassi wreck this year. With an aerial photograph on deck we followed a quarter tonner through the slot between Goose Rock and the wreck to look up at the lighthouse towering above us. Exhilirating...
The next SB3 kite got launched and we flew off after our chase at 11 knots boat speed. Red Fox is an RF290 from Dartmouth which is essentially a Laser 28. We were just catching her when "puff", we blew another kite. Jib up, reef out, and we rounded St Catherine's. As it happens the wind had gone forward so white sail was the right call anyway.
We saw Crewcut from CCSC just before the next kite hoist to power us up to Bembridge Ledge buoy. Our new Ullman S2 spinnaker went up and we powered off on a lovely downwind sail surfing down the waves. A difficult gybe meant the inevitable broach and we damaged our new kite! Tears - but we still had one left so the red and white spinnaker went up as seen in the previous post.
Round Bembridge ledge we set off on the fetch becoming a beat upto Ryde. The wind was strong now and we were probably a little overpowered. The short tacking along Ryde sands to stay out of tide is always a worrying time and we did bump bottom once as we straightened up in the tack back out.
With no further issues other than some fluky wind off Osborne house we broke the finish line. We never could catch Red Fox but there were a lot of faster boats behind us.
Our finish was 15th in IRC division 3C, 140th overall out of 457 IRC finishers and an elapsed time of 08:12:34 - 20 minutes faster than last year. I'm happy.
Thanks to all the FarrOut crew who did a great job. The level of silence on the boat as we pushed her downwind was impressive. As I started to struggle on the helm, they'd already anticipated and the mainsheet eased, the kicker eased, and the spi trim eased - all to gently go back on once she was back on the rails. All in absolute silence, everyone knowing their job. Brilliant.
Sunday's delivery back to Weymouth upwind in 30 knots with big seas is best erased from our minds. Hideous.
FarrOut crew: Alice Perrett, Jack Baker, Adam Greaves, Darren Aston, Stephen HB, Jez Rees
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