Photo by Tim Wright of photoaction.com

Yesterday we had a mixed batch of races but with 1 mile legs on the three windward leewards it was hard to stretch our legs and save our time on the Swan 42s. Today we had a windy race around the island and unfortunately with damage to our spinnaker we didn’t really get going however, we still came 3rd in class which wasn’t too bad. With the forcast looking windy tomorrow they race commitee have decided to not have us race to Marigot and anchor. This was a popular move from the boat captains perspectives as no anchoring for us is a positive.

We were finished by 12:30 today but had to wait for the 3pm bridge which was mayhem as usual causing me to have a few quiet heart attacks. The cruiser/racers don’t understand how hard it is for pure race boats to hold a position in 25 knots of wind without at least a knot and half of boat speed. With such thin appendages and light weight boats we just get blown around and also have no way of steering without a flow over our rudder and keel.

Safe and sound at the dock with the sails at the sailmaker it was time to go home where I made salmon, over couscous with watercress and a sour cream, caper, shallot, cucumber, radish sauce. I can hardly keep my eyes open but the boys have rallied to go to a party. I am up at 5:30am again tomorrow to go to the bakery for fresh bagettes and the sailmakers to pick up the repaired main. Time for some sleep.

Photo by Tim Wright – start of the Carib 600

Yesterday morning we pulled back into Antigua YC Marina and I was hardly able to talk or get across the boat on the last tacks into the finish I was that battered and bruised. The 600 mile race was technically exciting and the only thing that would have made it more of a suicide mission would have been cold English weather. As the only bowman on the boat I was up for every sail change and basically stayed zipped up in my Kokotat drysuit the whole way round. The first night I went against my cardinal rule and just stayed in it sleeping in the back pipe cot next to the steering cables.

The high of the event was on the leg on the last night from Barbuda to Redonda with the A2 (really we needed the A3). Mike and I swapped helm every 45 minutes as it was all you could do to keep the kite full and not wipeout. With gusts up to 26 knots (the A2 top end is 20knots) and a wind direction that was swinging through 30 degrees (we were carrying at 135 TWA should have been at 145TWA). We were both on the helm not able to fully enjoy the experience as this was the leg that most likely would determine our position. The 55 mile leg went by in 3.5 hours and I got the top speed of the race at 21.6knots. Water was just fire hosing across the deck – the trimmers and grinder doing an excellent job to keep her on her feet. As we couldn’t stay on the rhumb line we ended up dropping and hoisting a jib to get us up to the island of Redonda. Unfortunately the Jib Top luff tape had pulled out so we were on the number 3 on an outboard lead. The other watch quickly took off down below to sleep.

The low was as we were rounding Saba (which is really cool to see during the day) in the middle of the night. We changed from the Jib Top to the jib. The wind was swirling around the island changing direction and velocity. As usual it was wet on deck and pitch black. As we were packing the jib into the bag on the weather side (I was about 8 foot forward of the rigging) a wave came over the bow picked me and the sail up and sent us flying aft at a very fast rate. I was trying to find something to stop myself on and ended up face planting into the caps and diagonals. There was a lot of unladylike swearing and very quickly I had a egg on my head and the left side of my face had swollen up almost to the point of not being able to use the left eye. Luckily there was no breaking of the skin and after taking an aspirin I went and sat behind the helmsman for the rest of the watch feeling sorry for myself.

This is bruising to the inside of my legs after going out on the pole.

Amazingly despite the violent nature of how the boat moves the only other injury on the crew was David (the owner) twisting his ring finger to the point that we had to cut off his wedding band. Last night at the crew meal we talked extensively about the brutal nature of the boat offshore and its short comings. After reading an account of the race by the crew of CREAM a multihull that was close to us the whole race (we finished 20 minutes ahead of them) I wonder about our sanity! They were on watch inside the cabin, hardly got wet, had warm showers while we swirled around down below with piles of sails, crawling on the cabin sole as standing was too hard and were dretched in sweat due to the heat of the sun cooking us in a dark green carbon hull.

Lou was a star on the race taking a load off of me by producing every single meal. We had dinners courtesy of HM government. I was not sold on the idea of British military food until I ate it and actually it is pretty damn good. It is hydrated vacumn packed meals like chicken and herbs, steak pot roast with dumplings etc. You boil them in the foil packages in salt water and then Lou hands them up in a bucket with a fist full of spoons. You just tear open the package and eat straight out of the foil package. Much easier than what I have done for the past 15 years!

I have to get off to the boat to get repairs done so will write more later. We did however, end up 1st in class, 4th in IRC overall and 2nd in CSA overall so it was worth it.

Lou’s Photos of Carib 600

Pre race sunset at English Harbour where we went to the Royal Naval Tot Club

The boat is ready to go and we are going to get a good nights sleep. Forcast is for 25 knots at the start and I have my drysuit hanging up on my hook. You can track us on the Carribbean 600 website. Will be back online on Thursday hopefully to tell you all about it.

I know I have been useless updating the blog. Here are my last three weeks in pictures.

Sleeping on the boat in the original A2 when I forgot my sleeping bag in the yard office that had closed for the night. Luckily it was warm in Florida. Some long days before the charters arrive for Lauderdale to Key West Race. See http://yachtrace.net/Yeoman08.html

Cooking Coq Au Vin at Steff’s in the middle of the night. It was very tasty but for half the crew they didn’t get to eat it as there was a all hands call on deck just as I was serving up the second lot and so it was never eaten. It was a large effort next time spagetti bolognaise will do the trick just as well!

Start of the Key West Lauderdale Race. The race down was not as eventful as 2007 but we did manage to go the wrong side of one mark and have to unwind ourselves and then had a close call with a coral head. We didn’t get the surfing speeds of last time and there were a lot of gybes as we had electronics so we stayed in shallower water the whole time. Got a little cold at night.

After settling everyone into the crew houses in Key West I flew back to Lauderdale and picked up the van of delivery items and crew gear and did the costco shopping. This is one of 3 cart loads of food it took me 3 hours in Costco. Feeding 15 people for 10 days required wholesale quantities of food. I also did a few supermarket runs on top of this one which as you can see there is a lot of beer.

A screen shot of my excel spreadsheets for the food required during each part of the project in Florida.

Some of the days in Key West were like sailing in the Solent with a cold northerly blowing. We got some good starts and some poor starts. The good ones were depressing as within a few minutes we would be rolled by the TP52’s or the STP65 and that would be that. It was encouraging to see our speed relative to Sjambok has improved the bowsprit has made a large difference to the bow not digging in and getting around the corners is that much easier.

Repair done during race week after we were hit by Sjambok’s bowsprit. Luckily it just punctured the outer carbon and didn’t damage the inner skin. This will last till she gets back to the UK for a proper repair and paint job.

After race week I hoisted out at Robbies and due to her draught they didn’t have stands large enough so they ‘dug’ Yeoman in with a back hoe. Actually really stable and easier for me to get her ready for delivery. The two blue drums are diesal drums for delivery to Antigua as I only have a 10g built in tank. I spent 4 days getting her ready for the delivery south next week.

This is the 4 month old puppy that was living on the houseboat next to Yeoman at Robbies. I looked after her for the day as the owners girlfriend was hit by a hummer when on a scooter and was taken to hospital. Very cute and she enjoyed riding around on the cart at Home Depot much more than Draeger the dog does at home!

I went out with Chance the J120 for Regatta Pro’s November One Design Midwinters yesterday. We had a nice amount of wind considering it was winter. The fog never cleared and it started to drizzle half way through the second race. It was great fun as usual sailing with the Chance crew. They are all great sailors and can do most positions which means their crew work is always top notch. In the winter they take different positions the bow helmed the first race and the mid bow the second race. We ended up in third it was a tight finish with first being only two boat lengths ahead. In the second race we were second with the first place boat doing a horizon job on the fleet.

My guys as I call them Rene and Gus sailed with me on the Moore – Flashman on Saturday it was light air and we had a fun day despite doing very poorly. The first start I believe took 4 general recalls to get us off the line – there was a ebb pushing everyone over and I guess people weren’t paying enough attention to it. I made many changes to the boat after the Nationals and they didn’t seem to help so back to the drawing board. The problem is that one of the changes might have helped but seeing as I did so many at once I don’t know which ones to fix! Silly me.

On Sunday we went out with Mary on Astra and I went from steering to Saturday to bow on Sunday. It was odd weather for October – we got the usual June weather instead it was blowing 35knots in the slot between angel and alcatraz. The great pumpkin is a fun race as it is a reverse pursuit race you can go either way round and the smallest boats start first. Not many boats started behind us and as it looked glassy calm in Racoon so after much conversation we went to Alcatraz first and then went through Racoon last. The winning boat went the other way but they were small and started a good hour and half before us. My friend Tom from the UK came out with us and the Astra trimmers got taken to boot camp as he is a really great trimmer I hope they enjoyed the coaching. We ended up 25th out of the 164 boats that started.

After racing I had a casual meal at my house and made spagetti carbonara which went down well I think I will do it again sometime as it really is a simple meal to make after a day on the boat.

On our way home after racing.

On Sunday I doublehanded back from Vallejo on Rhum Boogie in the SSS season closing event. Wayne did his first singlehanded race up to Vallejo on Saturday but I think decided he is more of a social guy then his competitors and so probably will stick to doublehanding!

The start was right off the club and by my watch we were 5 seconds late to start the rest of our class was way early. By mine, Wayne and a few other boats reckoning half the fleet was over early but there wasn’t a recall so off everyone went. Very odd.. We had the ebb with us and as usual in the river one boat would catch a zephyr and come roaring up from behind and pass you and then we would do the same. Once out of the river we went to the center of the channel avoiding the two tankers on a large lift but the people who stayed against the breakwater even it what seemed like less breeze gained. We started to favour the right side of the course and it paid for us until we got to the first marker of the restricted area and then had to move to the south of the shipping lane. We then stayed closer to the lane as there was more wind while others went to the left of the course. The wind came in from the left and we were left hanging out to dry! We had been on starboard tack headed right at point and ended up with a 40 degree left shift putting us in a bad position and in early flood.

We kept trading tacks with the J120 Twist and finally we decided to bail to the left and take the loss getting into 12 feet of water and less tide against us. Twist took it a little too far and ended up on the sand bank taking quite a while to get off on a falling tide. We managed to get some legs when the breeze came up to 11 knots and over took two boats by hoisting our spinnaker for the last 200 yard dash to the finish at RYC. We were first to finish in our class but corrected out in 6th. I think really we should have been in class 2 not the sports boat class as although we look like an open 40 we are desceptively heavy and more like the class 2 boats which included an Azzurra. If we had been in class 2 we would have corrected out 3rd in class. All in all a beautiful sail in nice breeze with a fun short handed partner.

On Sunday I had a great time racing on Astra doing bow at the CYC Season Closer which had a pursuit race (we started last being the fastest) and a course which allowed you to go either way around the course. First mark was Little harding then alcatraz, angel and little harding then back to finish at CYC. Lots of jib changes from the light to the medium and finally heavy and two spinnaker runs. We needed 1/4 mile more and we would have got first as it was we had to settle with the 3rd place. It really was a beautiful day on the bay. The crew on saturday had the pleasure of watching Maltese Falcon enter the bay clearing the Golden Gate by only 20 feet.

We had perfect conditions yesterday for the Farlonnes Race. Intially it didn’t look so promising with a 5-10 forcast and it was gray, overcast and cold out. It turned out to be a beautiful day with a lot of wildlife including a pod of whales – two breached right in front of us in unison and we also witnessed about 100 seals feeding on a school of fish. Marin side of the channel paid going out with a large 40 degree shift to the right meant that we rounded next to the 78 and 56 footers in the class above who started 5 minutes ahead of us.

We only had one boat an Express 37 ahead of us in our class and pretty quickly after hoisting the spinnaker we managed to climb over them. However, the Olson 40 came on strong and passed us a few miles west of Bonita. We managed to get them back in the bay and finished first over the line in our class and first in class. Annabele enjoyed her first sail (she was a little bored at first as it was a long time going upwind) and the wildlife and looked like a veteran in her sailing gear. The enterance into the bay was one in a million completely clear with 10-15 knots, spinnaker up and the lights of San Francisco looking beautiful in the cool crisp night. Another late night but a very enjoyable race.

See more photos click here

Just another rant – the Olson tried to luff us up after dark us with a spinnaker and them with a jib. I wish people would read the SI’s and NOR’s and realise that the RRS are turned off after dark and the COLREGS are in effect. So although windward has to avoid a collision with a leeward sailing vessel leeward can’t luff you up.

So the Moore Nationals were great fun. We didn’t do as well as hoped due to boat set up – the new rig is a lot different to the old one and with work and travel I haven’t had time to sail the boat and work it all out. The crew was the best I could hope to get – olympic and america’s cup experience and then of course my little brother on the bow! Saturday and Sunday it blew and we were 135lbs light so that didn’t help upwind boatspeed. We had a beautiful new spinnaker with lovely large shoulders allowing us to storm downwind 🙂

End result is that I have a long job list:
– increase the mast rake by 1.5 inches
– increase the throw of the backstay
– become a better helm!
– recut the number one as the leech is way too long
– recut the main as there is way too much luff curve making it baggy and impossible to depower

Myles learnt to take abuse from our Frenchman on the boat as did I and we both learnt a ton. There is nothing like getting your ass kicked in a small boat!

Now to the reason for the title of this entry… I have a secret to tell. I hit someone when I was helming – a first – I was on port in 5th place at the top mark and had to duck a boat on the starboard layline. I ducked hard letting my main off and then as the crew yelled up up up I pushed the help away and came up too much and too fast. With the crew on the rail you can’t see where your bow is and I hit him on the transom port side. All I needed was an inch more! The good thing is I do the repairs for a living and just in case someone had a problem I had the repair parts in my truck and did the repair over night all it needs is a LPU coat. It was just filler that fell off and there was no damage to Flashman.

Vicky the class president put on a great event and it was fun to see the Moore family at another event. Can’t wait till next season when hopefully I will be around more and get better results.

By the way the saying that winning the start wins you the race is not always right! Flashman is the blue boat with the carbon jib 🙂