2015 Cowes Week Day 2_Make up time

August 9, 2015

As Skipper of the boat, I believe having certain privileges. One of them is to write the blog about a succesfull day. Today is one of such days.

After our disastrous day on Saturday, we decided to just do exactly same as yesterday i.e. just sail the boat in the way we trained for. After all we were leading the fleet Saturday 75% of the race and we were caught by a naughty trick of the Allmighty, not in our favour at all.

Today we started in the same manner like yesterday. We had a good start and we had only boats behind us from the very beginning. Our lead we could extend on every leg, by careful navigating and by avoiding to run aground close to the Beaulieu Spit. Our boat handling was excellent and our heavy boat was being tacked like a Laser most of the times.

On the one but last leg, towards Elephant Boat Yard Mark against an upcoming tide, we just could make it by throwing in a tack close to the Island shore. After all the tide decreased considerably close to the coast and our anticipation/calculations proved to be correct.

So we passed Elephant and right away we got into a favourable tide towards the finish. One can compare it with a Tour de France participant who arrives first at the top of a hill, goes down at a higher speed than the ones still climbing and gains a large distance of his followers. With the Tour de France, like in some sail races, there comes another hill and things are settled again. However this time there was no next “hill” for us, so our advantage in distance to the finish increased after rounding Elephant and never decreased because of a next tide (hill for the Tour de France participants). Said in simple terms, we had in a way a tidal gate.

Here below our course of today. (Elephant Mark is just in the middle of the lower part of the course)

The result was more than we could have expected. We did not only arrive on the finish as first boat on the water, but we also won the race on rating. Most important for us was that COR BLIMEY, the winner on Saturday, made it only as 11th on rating.

It means that everything is open again, except perhaps in respect of MOGAN, a boat with a very low rating (0.973) which was 2nd Saturday and 3rd today. They must be sailing this boat excellent. Since they always will be far behind us on the water we have no way to compete with them on the water. Hopefully the Allmighty will help us with some days over 30 plus knots of wind (?) later this week. The barometer is falling already and “windy Wednesday” must have had a reason to become so known during Cowes Week.

Tomorrow will be another day. We are confident and hope for no lay days this year since that could mean that our result of Saturday would count and then there will be no price for us. “no guts, no glory” that will be our slogan for tomorrow.

The first congratulations which reached us came from Joost Heikens, who must have taken a free week since he knows our position and result earlier than we ourselves. Second came in Patrick and Monique de Koster, my first and eternal sponsors. Without their mental and financial support WINSOME would never have reached this level of sailing. Third came in my grand childern. Fourth Wout van Everdingen.

Harry.

A movie about our Start, Set, Douse and another Set.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS-4cIYIUrQ&w=560&h=315]