3rd day with many navigator’s mistakes

August 5, 2008

Monday did not turn out to be a good day for WINSOME. After a relatively good start at the pin end of the RYS start line, where we made maximum efforts to have a real starting line on the computerscreen including the position of the Committee Boat, we lost place when WINSOME appeared locked i.e. could not take back to the shoreline to avoid strong counter current. After that we had to decide when to cross the Solent to the Island side i.e. to Salt Med buoy considering the strong East going tide. I made a calculation but for some odd reason (I still do not know which) I assumed a boatspeed of 5 knots whereas we were running 7,5 knots. Then I consulted Andy if we should tack earlier and to our loss at the Island side, in shallow water, or that we should take a more risky decision by staying on the English shore side, also in shallow water, but Andy either did not hear me or did not understand my question so I got no reply. I decided to continue somewhat more but once we crossed the Solent we could say very soon that we had overstood the mark and we had to bear away i.e. again loosing places. Arriving at Salt Mead Buoy our position did not look so bad but then we started a tacking duel with for instance Vanilla to stay closest possible to the shore and this turned out badly because we were flying Genoa I with some 17 to 18 knots of wind. Consequently we lost much ground here loosing may be upto a minute on each tack. Further misunderstandings between me and Andy and two back tacks killed us so we ended in the middle of the fleet when we arrived at Hamstead Ledge. SALVO was in the lead already and we could say her powering away under spinaker with the tide in her favour. A terrible view for all of us. Also VANILLA disappeared in the distance.Then we started several spinaker legs with spinaker I, later II and there we made some ground good. Winds increased to 24-25 knots and we were happy to have spinaker II up on the right moment.After Ynglinngs buoy we started a long run to Raymarine buoy but all of a sudden we observed other boats in our class not passing that buoy correctly so after having considered protest these boats we suddenly discovered, thanks to the Garmin backing up by Boj and thanks to his observations, that we needed to go to Quinnell so here again we lost space and VANILLA which must have been a minute or so ahead of us only, disappeared again on the horizon.Spinaker II was taken down after Quinnell and Spinaker III was hoisted after Gurnard. Another mistake since we easily have continued with Spinaker II. Anyhow no places were shifted anymore and we scored 7th place.After HOT RATS, a boat which made a big broach under our eyes and broke her spinakerboom, was disqualified in a protest again XCITABLE, our score was improve to 6th place.In short it was me the navigator who is to be blamed for this score. Boathandling was perfect. So now we are looking of a score for the first three days of 4-1-6. Today will be the day of the truth and we are all looking forward to it.Harry