RORC Easter Challenge – Day 3 – Easter Sunday

April 16, 2017

Herman, John, Joos H, Joost D, Boj, Leen, Laura and Harry on WINSOME. This morning we were third in our Class, but with two good results, we could potentially become second in our Class. We had an early breakfast and picked up our Genoa I M-H from North Sails Gerry as the luff had been repaired. We moved SUHAILI, the ship (which is actually a pretty small boat) in which Sir Robin was the first ever to solo circum navigate the globe non stop. We were one of the first to motor off.

Light (8-11kts) westerly breezes with big shifts made life difficult for us. We had good start, went to the right side (both ways) early, as we had planned to. At the first windward mark, we were with the first three boats in our fleet. A short kite reach towards East Bramble and things went from bad to worse. A poor gybe and thereafter sailing about 25 degrees higher than the majority of the fleet. It turned out that we were actually sailing to the wrong mark. In these light conditions this proved to be extremely painful, as otherwise we would have been able to hold the kite and we would not have come into the mark on a slow low angle. As the tide was ripping us to the East, the wide rounding allowed at least two other boats to sneak inside us. We chose the right end side of the beat, which did not prove to be so good this time. Even in hind sight we are still convinced that this was the right decision, so the boats on the left must have gotten a better breeze.

The RORC race team, who did a very nice job this weekend organizing nice races, both windward leeward and around the cans, had a hard time between the first and the second race. The wind was shifting from 290 – 245 up and down from 5-13 knots. After they moved the start line we were finally sent off.

Easter Sunday wasn’t our lucky day. At the start gun, our Genoa tack came undone and we had to ease and lower the Genoa a bit to get it fixed again. Not the best way to start a race. We did some good things and some bad things. At the first wind mark, we were set for a bear away set, but should have done a gybe set, at the gate we were forced to gybe by a right of way boat.

Jim Staltonstall (famous for his sailing ‘ferret’s’ philosophy https://www.sailingnetworks.com/news/read/6900 ) spent some time coaching our crew weight placement and sail trimming from his RIB. We got a lot of positive feedback, but to be fair, the crew weight placement, including my own ‘fat on the rail’ was already better just beceasue the coach was there!

It turned out we had finished eighth in the first race and fifth in the second race. Overall we came fourth.

Let’s not forget that RORC Easter Regatta is all about having fun, getting the rust out of your sailing system, learning how to sail the boat better and learning how to become a better sailor ourselves. I think most of the above applied for all eight of us, so it was a very good weekend!

I really enjoyed this sailing event. RORC did a great job in organizing it. North Sails UK and the other coaches including Eddy Warden Owen and Jim Staltonstall did a fantastic job with their feedback and coaching seminars. Thank you!

Thank you Harry for sailing with you again and thank you, Leen and Herman for bringing WINSOME back to Lymington, where Berthon will look after her for the next two weeks.

I look forward to sailing with all of you again. Up for Cervantes Trophy!

Cheers

Boj.

https://www.rorc.org/raceresults/2017/rec-threeos.html