WSC members win trophy in double handed Figaro.

Us and Rattler on arrival

The prestigious RDYC class 1 offshore race to Cherbourg was won by WSC members Richard Veale and Jez Rees sailing the Figaro Solo offshore race boat Groupe Partouche....... Sounds good doesn't it, you can dream....well that's what Rattler used to be called and Richard and I were really looking forward to a double handed race to Cherbourg, trouble is we couldn't find what was going on, there was some talk of the race happening on saturday but the weather was best on the advertised date of friday and we'd taken a day off work anyway.

In all the years that Rich and I have been sailing together we've never raced offshore with just the two of us, usually an adjudicator has been required in the past. Only the night before we'd been adversaries as he sailed Rattler fully crewed in the thursday evening IRC series against us on FarrOut.

We managed to get a start at 0830 along with RDYC boats “Wahinee Waves” and “Brown Eyed Girl”, Rattler shot off under the old Groupe Partouche spinnaker and we successfully gybed as we crossed the bay on our 152deg rhum line to Fort de l'ouest Cherbourg. The wind was high and the seas were flat, Rattler loved it, we loved it. We had an unplanned spinnaker take-down as a clip popped but the recovery was successful and we used a little bit of white sail time to make some westing in our course. The spinnaker then went up again and was only dropped at the finish line with around four broaches along the way. The boat is so well behaved though she just comes back up again, I guess this is what you want if you're a sleep deprived French single hander...


We finished in 8 hours 45 mins with all smiles. Gareth of the Royal Dorset was pleased to inform us that we had won class 1.. The Glory, The Glory!

A pleasant couple of nights in Cherbourg with a visit to the Fort de la Roule and a cracking sail back on sunday with winds in the high twenties and up and some nice waves to surf down. We tied up on her mooring near “big wellies” after another 8 ¾ hour sail! Bring on the next time.

Lunch Figaro style

Thursday 1 - fun with Rattler

The first thursday night race at WSC only had 4 boats in the IRC class which was a disappointment but I guess 2 entrants were taken out of the game by Sunday's collision I just hope that the same was not the case for Snow Goose (still smarting over that one).

We were up against the Melges Crazeology, Scoline and (ta da da) the Figaro 1 Rattler! In all the years that I've been friends with Richard this is the first time that we'd sailed against each other helming our own boats. As you can imagine this made the race pretty special, particularly at the first windward mark as we crossed in front of their bows. They were coming in on the starboard lay line and we flopped on top of them in tight cover only to pull ahead to the mark, hoist the Touareg ayso and away. A short lived lead as they're a faster boat and soon got in front. Not far(r) enough though and we were pleased to beat Rattler on corrected time and with a 2nd place to Crazeology who were miles ahead by the end of the two laps of triangle sausage course.

Really pleased to see Rattler out on the race course and I think that they all enjoyed themselves. They'll probably whoop our backsides next week.......

Sunshine Day

A nice bit of video as we set out across Weymouth Bay for Cowes on Friday on Rattler.

JOG Cherbourg 25th Sept 09 - Sunday series 4/4

An action packed weekend this weekend with the finale of the sunday series for Farr Out with a serious depletion in crew numbers due to Bob, Dave and myself all going offshore with Rattler for the final JOG race of the season Cowes-Cherbourg.

When I phoned Stuart on sunday evening, the boys seemed to have had a pretty good race with Paul from Stuart's work pulled in as a reinforcement for him and Steve, but only three up. A spinnaker wrap cost them the series with Manana winning the last race by 36 seconds corrected. Well done to them and I look forward to getting back into it for the autumn series starting next week.

On Rattler we had an excellent race, starting in class 5 instead of class 4 although this was changed in the results. The initial beat down the solent had us up at the front by the needles and the kite hoist that would stay up all the way to the finish. We had Whistler and Xara with us and we were pleased to see Xara's masthead tricolour change from white to green as we slid past.

There were a lot of ships to deal with in the northern shipping lane and we gybed in the middle to keep in favourable tide and scooted on down towards Cap Levy keeping east expecting the breeze to die and to ride the tide down into Cherbourg. We lost a lot of ground just outside the Grand Rade but all in all a cracking race. Crew pictured at the Jog drinks reception at the Yacht Club de Cherbourg:


I had a chat with the guys from the Laser 28 Moondog they'd done very well double handed. Let's get Farr Out doing some offshore racing next year.....