Screaming Reaches!

After the bliss of the previous week I was keen to get out again to hopefully lift the preformance of the previous week. Generally by Tuesday the long range weather forecast can provide a reasonably accurate prediction of the winds for the upcoming Sunday's sailing. This week it was not looking great with a return to the conditions of the first race being 15 - 25 knot NE which are very gusty and make conditions at times very demanding particually with novice crews.

Saturday arrived with the weather as predicted and the Mike the Sail Trainer sent out an ominous email in the evening to confirm that Transitional Training was cancelled due to predicted 20 - 30 knot winds.

Sweet; Bitter

After two weeks out of the water finally got out sailing on Saturday to rebuild confidence after the tragedy of loosing a mast at the last race. I also wanted to ensure that the mast was setup correctly with a new sail combination for the MG14 class configuration. After setting the mast to a satisfactory rake and shroud tension took out Todd who owns the only other MG14 boat in the club. The wind was a fresh 8 - 12 knots and very comfortable on the river. After a half an hour with the confidence renewed and the tide almost full I decided to head out to the open sea beyound the river mouth. With the tide pushing in strongly and a small 1 metre swell we left the relative comfort of the river out into the open sea where the wind was fresher but more steady than in the river. It was hard work but very exilarating pushing over the swells and through the wind chop as we sailed to windward. When we had got about a kilometer offshore I turned back and we reached back into the river.

After sailing for 2 hours we decided after rounding the upcoming port channel bouy that we would call it a day. As Todd removed the Whisker Pole for the bouy rounding I was distracted from my task to give him some assistance and hit the bouy square on. Fortunately we hit the rubber bumper and suffered only some minor chips but it certainly tainted what had been a great days' sailing.

Next morning was an even nicer looking day with the wind backing off slightly to 6 - 10 knots. First up were boat repairs and after planning to get on the water at 10:00am with Jill for some much needed practice finally made it by 12:15. Fortunately one of the other NS sailors had taken Jill out for an hour which helped to ease the anticiaption and nerves. After doing some basic manouvres there was just enough time for a quick snack before briefing at 1:00pm.

The course looked really interesting and was a figure eight with returns on each end. The starts for Championship races are always very competitive and crowded and taking a fairly conservative and safe approach meant we got away probably 20 seconds behind the pack. We quickly regained some ground after the first beat and were within a couple of boat lenghts of Jason and Todd who would be our nearest competition for entire race. We managed to get in front of Todd after arounding the third mark with the delays he experienced in setting his kite but Jason got away from us and we were unable to make up the the distance between us over the race. We did manage to put some time on Todd but when we rounded the last second last mark I sailed straight to the finish instead of upto the last mark. After crossing the line twice and not getting a hooter I realised when I saw Todd sailing upto the last mark that I had made a mistake. I then set a course for the last mark and we ended up finally getting our hooter 3 minutes behind Todd. After having a great day of sailing in perfect weather on a great course the final mistake wasn't that hard to get over. At least we had finished the course and had made significant progress in developing Jill's sailing ability and confidence.

No Sailing As Wind Howls

Woke up to a very cloudy day with the wind up at 8:00am to 10 - 15 knots. Had been hoping for a more liesurely day than last sunday but after studing the weather maps all week knew that the wind was going to be at least in this range. As I left for Ballina, a one hour drive south, I was thinking that at least it wasn't raining as the weather forecast had been predicting last night, but passing through Byron it started pelting down.

At the sailing club most of the keen sailors were there but noticably none of the trainee sailors. When it wasn't raining there was almost no wind but it was cold, my car's temperature gauge registering 13 degrees which is almost unheard of in Spring in these parts. When the rain came it bucketted down and brought with it strong gusty SE winds. On this basis the Vice Commodore cancelled the day's racing and even knowing I needed the practise resigned myself to taking it easy for the day and settling down in front of a TV for a change to watch the footy.

Unfortunately making up for last weekends failure was going to be delayed for another week

Sailing Season Begins - They Say Traumatic Events Happen in Threes

The new season started on Fathers Day, 3rd September 2006 with a bright sunny day after almost a week of rain. The wind was light out of the NW early but was forecast to be N-NE upto 20 - 25 knots.

The day started rather ominously after missing the All Blacks game Live on TV and almost certainly knowing that I had not properly setup the video player at home to tape the game. I therefore resigned myself to not avoiding hearing the score should it be mentioned during the day prior to watching a recording of the game on Tuesday night. I rang dad to wish him happy fathers day and quickly found out that the All Blacks had lost to South Africa 21-20 so I guess that was a sign things were going to be extraordinary this day.

I then set about trying to find a repairer for my first car puncture in 3 years after changing my tyre for the spare which was not much wider than a bike tyre. In these modern times you cannot get a tyre repaired after noon on Saturday till Monday morning believe it or not. I had been told by the NRMA that I might be lucky enough to catch a repairer who had a business behind a local Car Dealer. He could not be contacted by phone and I would only catch him if I drove past and he was there. After my second drive by that morning I was lucky enough to find him whipper snippering his lawn. In less that 5 minutes he had the tyre repaired after removing a nail and plugging the hole without even taking the tyre off the rim. I galdly parted with $20 and was on my way to the Sailing Club thinking perserverance is eventually rewarded. This was Event No.1.

I arrived at the sailing club at around 10:00am thinking I'll be on the water before 11:00am and be able to have a relaxing and hopefully successful day. I was intoduced to Jill as a crew for my boat for the day and thought that was the last of my possible anxieties out of the way. I then got my boat out to find that it was heavily stained from the sap of the hardwood timber floor above. I gave it a wash to find that it would require more than a bit of detergent to remove. I dragged out the fibreglass restorer, then a slightly abrasive polish and 2 hours latter after much effort finally had the boat restored to its previous appearance except for the non slip surface on the deck which was still heavily stained.

After cleaning up the boat I had just enough time to rig it and have a snack to eat before briefing for the race. Prior to setting out on the water I explained the boat setup to Jill and established that she had done some sailing on keel boats and recently completed a sailing course but had not done any skiff sailing. She appeared to know her sailing terminology well and looked fit so that was a good start. By the time we left the shore the wind had come up to a blustery 10 -15 knots with perhaps stronger gusts. When we left the beach it became quickly apparent that Jill was very uncomfortable in the boat being extremly tense and totally unaware of where she was. After steadying things with a few tacks it was time to start and we got past the line probably 50m behind the fleet. We got up to the top mark and got bouy room from the flying fifteen Ghost before executing our first gybe which was thankfully reasonably comfortable though slow with Ghost moving ahead. The first reach upto the second mark of the triangle was very fast and negotiated with Jill learning quickly about the need to move briskly around the boat to stop it from reaching extreme angles. The second mark rounding was easy as we just tightened up for the beat across the river then tacked into the next leg up the river again. Things seemed to be settling down and though we had lost some distance to the fleet up ahead I thought after we rounded the top mark we could hopefully start to squeeze some performance out of the boat. As we came upto the mark I was able to give Jill some instruction to ease the jib slowly and we came around smoothly before the boom gybed then Jill pannicked with the sudden lurch pulling the jib on hard before racing to the windward side of the boat as it rounded up and capsized into the water. As soon as it went in I was very conscious of not letting the boat go upside down or turtling as it is also known, but having to uncleat the jib meant I was unable to concentrate on protecting the boat from this happening. We both had to lean on the centreboard to get the boat up and as we were leaning into it I heard a crack knew we had snapped the mast. As the boat slowly came up I was hoping that I was wrong but it was not to be unfortunately.

We managed to sail the boat back to the club house as the rigging is fixed just beneath the carbon tip that had snapped. I went through the circumstances of the event with Jill and sensing her enthusiasim for sailing the NS had not been too severly dented said I would erect the MG mast that I had on the boat and take her out again. By the time we hit the water almost everyone had finished the race and the wind conditions were still intense. We did a couple of laps of the general course though sailing up further into the river than the top mark had been located and going about instead of gybing, and had a glorious reach down to the second mark before crossing the river.

What a day it had been, there is always next week when I can look forward to hopefully finishing my first race for the season.