Cervantes Trophy 2005

Light airs and thick fog - hmmm , not an enticing thought but nevertheless Friday night saw us picking our way gnigerly through the shipping to Cowes in nil viz , where we picked up a buoy some 2 cables from the start line and turned in . Jontys alarm brought the whole crew - except John of course- out of bed at 6 ( something to do with relief at finally putting a stop to the snoring!) only to find that we were alone in a little 40 ft wide grey capsule and the race was indefinately postponed.

4 hours and several breakfasts later we were all settling down to enjoy the NOW show on the radio when the fog lifted and we were away into 10 knots of SE aided by the last of the flood.The gun saw us on the line but to leeward of No Fear and Vitesse , who prevented us taking the South side of the Ryde middle bank where we expected a bit more tide. Ok , plan B was hastily cobbled together - we would carry on to the mainland shore where we would benefit from extra backed wind from the convergence effect wouldnt we ? Like hell we would . The wind veered 20 degrees( presumably a predictable wind bend round Old Castle point?), we ran out of tide - all the boats to windward lifted up over us and it seemed the crew was covered in gloom .Hang about though - that wasnt gloom , it was fog which had come to our rescue, covering our embarrassment and allowing us to cobble together the next apalling theory - that this was an expected veer ( oh yeah!) and we must cut our losses and get over to the right.

By now I was down below glued to the chart plotter and radar, which resembled an ants nest in perpetual motion , whilst on deck Jonty was really struggling to steer a proper course . He eventually just looked at the compass whilst the crew relayed apparent wind directions to him and stared out into the murk , trying to identify the owners of the myriad fog horns. Seemingly others were having even more trouble as when the fog lifted we were back at the head of the class . As we passed inside the Forts we picked up a Southerly shift to take us over the old undersea barrier. Ahead of us Quokka was heading in the same direction but on the opposite tack with an Easterly ! Shifty or what! We headed off towards this shift , hooked into it and lo and behold were out of the Solent , past Bembridge and on course for Le Havre. Those further inshore ran into the early ebb , lost the wind and presumably cursed us for being a bunch of lucky expletives - and not without reason!

Our perusal of the internet suggested that we could expect a SE of 10 -15 knots til 0400 , when it would veer to be SW by 0700. In fact the wind was 080 , and the plan was made to ease off to the right of the rhumb so we could take the SW shift into the finish . We based our plan on 6 knots of speed , but in fact were soon fetching at up to 7.5 as the breeze built to 18 -20 - enough to have us fully bladed out for a while. When the veer came it was gradual , the wind dropped and our course gradually fell off from the original 150 to 200. Finally , 12 miles short of the finish it fell away altogether before puffing in from 240 alowing us to tack and hoist the kite for the finish. An hour and a half and two peels later we crossed the line alonside a Sidney 40 , 2nd in class and 13th overall . It was a big boat race as they would have held that fresh easterly all the way to the finish so we can be pleased at a half decent result for our first ever RORC race.