News

October 1, 2006

Recipe for some great yacht racing…..


Take ten Farr 45s blend with two DK46S and cut away the vaguaries of handicap racing.
Place in the Solent for two days at a wind speed 20Kn (30Kn when fan assisted) and you end up with some dynamite racing.

The Vice Admirals Cup was an absolute blast this year in the big boat division and the conditions caused quite a few incidents in particular at starts and bottom mark roundings.

Aboard Exabyte 4 we were all pumped up for the first race and maybe a bit too pumped up, we got pushed out at the committee boat end and found ourselves having to duck transoms to make the line. W shaved past two transoms and our bow narrowly cleared Atomic, unfortunately the pole sticking out didn’t.

It is alaways a worrying site when you see a bowman’s eyes wide open as he sprints off the foredeck and the CRUNCH!!! as the carbon pole snapped was not a welcome noise. We sat out the race as Strapper from North Sails kindly ribbed crew man Nick Martin back to shore to get another one.

There was quite a bit of mayhem over the two days; broken halyards, ripped kites, the odd broach here and there but that’s what happens when you go out racing in a pumped up fleet of boats all roughly the same speed.

The most spectacular of crunches was between Cutting Edge and John Merricks; Cutting Edge fully lost their kite coming into the leeward mark and hey presto the boom slam dunked over for a full on Chinese gybe with the prawn crackers all over the place. John Merricks had already dropped their kite but they had no chance of avoiding Cutting Edge and there was a quite spectacular coming to of topsides and booms, resulting in a crack on John Merricks carbon spar.

Day one, there were four pretty gruelling races, the last race was a reach around the buoys rather than a windward leeward and to be honest it was not too popular with the crews, “give us windward leeward, was the chorus.”

At the end of Day one (assuming a discard) Jerry Otter’s Farr 45 Werewolf was on top with 5 points, Nick and Annie Haigh’s DK46 was second on 6 points and Shaun Frohlich’s Farr 45 Exabyte 4 was third on 9 points.


Day one was pretty hairy but by the morning of day 2 the conditions were even more brutal, the low came in from the Atlantic and the wind speed was 25 Kn true gusting 30kn, black clouds were building up over the Isle of Wight. On Exabyte 4 we were scurrying around trying to find the spray tops and put our lifejackets on, this was going to be a wet one!

On the five minute gun we hoisted the number four and began reaching up and down the starting area, it was gusty, visibility was poor, Ossie Stewart was driving for the day and he got us away for a conservative but great start with good speed and clear air near the middle of the line, pounding upwind towards the Eastern Solent. After a few tacks,it wasn’t long before we made the spreader mark but the boats that had gone left had made better progress and we rounded the mark in third or fourth. A short reach and BANG! we popped the 0.9oz shute and we were launched down the run. It is such a buzz doing good speed in these boats dowhill. At the rate we were travelling it wasn’t long before we hit the layline for the gybe and it was a sloppy one, God knows how we didn’t lose the shute but Ossie has done a lot of helming and I think that may have had a lot to do with it.

Gybe completed we were on course to the leeward gate and looking good, Dark and Steamy were bare headed and a few other boats were having issues. We had a good run and only Rebel were in front of us, but by some distance. This time we elected to go right up the track and we watched the whole fleet bar John Merricks tack to the centre of the course, we hung on for a bit longer and then tacked over locking horns with Dark and Steamy, Nick Haigh’s DK46 showed impressive performance upwind and she was bow up and there was little we could do about it, as she beat us to the spreader mark but not by much. Dark and Steamy elected to gybe early before the big pressure hit and we went off right, Rebel by now were clean away, but John Merricks and Rennaissance had worked well on the beat and caught up. We managed a reasonable gybe even though we had the odd loud voice before, during and afterwards and rounded clear of the opposition bar Rebel.

The last race of the day (the weather came in pretty bad after that 35 knots, hail, no Viz, really nasty, saw Ebel winners, Exabyte 4 second, then a great performance by John Merrcks, Dark and Steamy, Rennaisance and Werewolf.

Not definite but overall…

Dark and Steamy
Werewolf
Exabyte 4
Top three.

Fianl thoughts: cacking racing, great owners, a really friendly atmosphere between the crews and nice to see Ten Farr 45s out as Jack Pringle’s Fraxious joins the Farr 45 family!

And thanks to Morty and Mrs Morty and the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club for organising the event.

If there are some 40.7 crew or the quarter tonner posse out there please let me know how it was for you?

Coiler