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Thunderbolts and lightning, very very frightning.....

Saturday's practice was under dark skies with flashing lightning - a bit of rain and some #3 breeze allowed us to do some decent tacking practice and some time on distance work. I was delighted with my new spring to hold up the fridge lid, and when we got back in at 4pm I forwent the snooze that others had and tried to fit the spring, finding that whilst it held the lid open fine, it would now no longer close. More thought needed, clearly.

I had a meeting with other Island Charters owners - what a happy band we are :-) - and so we went our separate ways for the evening, the crew clearing one end of the White Hart whilst I was more civilised in one of the marina houses (very nice) and the Italian. We met back on the boat, and decided sleep really was necessary.

The night was torrential rain and more thunder and lightning, and whilst the boat didn't leak the condensation dripped just as much, and I got an earful, whilst the bow cabin seemed to suffer from a couple of wet patches. That's Curty and Elaine's story, anyway.

Sunday started to clear, and we headed into a southerly and brighter skies. We got away on time and had opportunity to set up the genoa and sort out trim issues before our start. In fact, we had aeons of time, because after the IRM fleet got away the wind went fluky and light, spinning through 180 degrees then filling back in after an hour. We mooched around, then kept a close eye on the new wind. Dark thunderclouds spoke of further squalls, and the wind speed was up to 16-18 knots, so at the 5 minute gun we changed to the #3. In the circumstances, it was a sensible decision, though in the fuuture I'm planning to make all such decisions in retrospect, as from then on the wind dropped to 12 knots and for the first beat it was often around 8. Not ideal, especially as we were back from the start line. I'd got the boat exactly where I wanted it to be, bang on the time I wanted, but unfortunately what I thought was the line was a few boatlengths back, and all those boats in front that I thought would be recalled were still behind the line. So there we were, back from the line, in dirty air, with the #3 up in 8-10 knots. Not the best of starts.....

We stuck with the #3 (memo; practice peeling to #1) - and owing to the flat water, footing off slightly, and working the shifts well, we more or less held our own despite being mostly underpowered. We gained on a couple of boats, but pretty much lost touch with the leaders. Round the top mark we had a lot to do, and set about making up ground downwind, slowly overhauling another couple. Peanut, Brightworks and others had also not had the best of beginnings and we were all in it together. Good trimming and crew work saw us take a few places back, and then the following beat (still with the #3 but this time correctly) we worked hard on the shifts and tide and got it all right, moving from the back of the chasing pack to the middle. A swap to the 0.9oz for a closer leg saw us maintain position - we went past a couple, but were caught from behind too.

A change to the #1, another beat, great upwind speed and some good strategy again saw us back up there, and then a long spinnaker leg with the 0.6oz saw us close in on a raft of boats. We'd gone left, then right downwind, sailing the angles well, and gybed across for the leeward mark. Peanut had slipped ahead by going right straight away, but we'd overtaken La Nef IV and others. We headed for the leeward mark on port, but with a strong tide sweeping us down to it we had to sail slightly deep. We were making good gains on boats ahead - one option was to go high, behind and inside them, before hopefully bearing off and gaining an overlap for the mark. We'd probably have got the overlap, as we were coming in faster and higher than they were, but we'd then have had to execute a very smart gybe drop and we'd not practiced it with the crew on board that day. I took the other option of hoping that they'd misjudged it and would have to sail increasingly deep and slow to counteract the tide and make the mark, and we'd go past them to leeward sailing higher and faster, and they'd have no overlap. But this didn't work out as we slowed as we me the pack, and we ended up in the middle of a raft of 8 boats, with 2 others coming in fast and loose and blitzing us all. Worse, that included X-Rated. In retrospect again, given the smart crew work shown so far that day, I should have gone for the inside overlap and maintained speed, because the gybing held no difficulties for us and we would have been well placed to escape from their clutches on the next beat. But with no strategic options we dropped back, in crap air and with nowwhere to go, then worked hard upwind yet again.

This mistake had dropped us about 6 places, many of which we made up again on the beat and then by sailing the angles downwind. At the last mark we'd clawed back to the front of that group, and we decided to loosely cover the fleet behind us. They understandably split, and we went kind of up the middle, sailing the shift. But the tide was more critical, and those that went right found it paid, so we lost a couple of places on that final beat but still held the others off.

12th, but only about 2.5 mins better and we'd have been 7th. Peanut, who'd just got ahead on the previous beat by a boat length, took that position, whilst those battles had lost us time and positions. But it was a fantastic day's racing - lots of position changes, and our result down to us - mistakes dropped us back, good sailing brought us forward. Excellent speed and wind strategy upwind, okay angles downwind but slightly slow for reasons that escape me at present (possibly due to the gusty nature of the day, allowing boats behind to catch up on the puffs), and all in all great fun.

Russell.