Morgan Cup 2005

The build up to this race seemed oddly unfamiliar - sailing to the startline in teeshirt and shorts - no gales forecast - no hint of fog. Had RORC gone soft or was it all a dream?

Apparently not . Once the reality had sunk in our somewhat depleted crew ( reduced by a bad back and a summer wedding - not sure which is worse) aproached the line in great good humour - got the transits wrong and made a distinctly second rate start. The great good humour was downgraded to moderate as a Swan 47 ( yes thats fourty SEVEN and rating lower than us ) sped off into the distance on her 40 foot waterline. It nearly reached flat calm when No Fear tramped over us to windward but increased fresh to strong when she strayed too far to leeward , had to tack to get round Ryde and allowed us to return the compliment. By Bembridge we could just crack sheets for Ocean Safety wherapon the skipper handed over to the more junior members of the crew so he could work out the tidal offset and get outside one of Ann's superb suppers , only to find that the boat had moved up a gear in his absence and we were vying for the lead ( if you ignore the aforementioned enormous Swan who was now scarcely to be seen). Arbitrator went too high , Supernatural went too low and we just snuck around the mark ahead of them. Unknown to us this was to be our zenith.

The next 90 miles would be a leeward/windward loop down to RORC buoy in progressively lighter winds overnight and then beating back to the Nab. We started the run going inshore but were prompted to gybe offshore, partly by a mad coaster that was intent on ramming us and partly because the skipper kept stating that easterlies in the channel always back at night and veer again in the day. This one didnt. In fact it veered in the night forcing us to head back to the rumb line on a header. An hour or so before RORC we crossed inches behind Supernatural ( who had presumably gone a similar way) and once we were well to the North the skippers backing shift arrived just in time to gybe into the mark on another header , arriving half a mile behind her .

The skipper opted to head inshore at the start of the beat." Thats crazy" I hear you say. "Why head off on starboard when you have just stated that the wind had backed?" Hmm , put like that it doesnt make much sense , although there was a marginal tidal advantage , the sun was really rather pleasant and not conducive to Great Thoughts and the skipper hadnt had his morning pot of coffee. Once this latter derilection of duty had been rectified , his brain appeared to clear and he started to repeat his mantra of the night before - you know , the one about easterlies backing at night and veering at lunchtime - the one that had been wrong in the night . Nonetheless we tacked offshore to be on the right when the veer came through and eventually passed astern of Gambit proving that our beat so far was not going well.

Astonishingly the veer arrived almost as predicted, we tacked and were on course for the Nab! The sun was shining , we had just enough wind to get us along at our maximum speed , we had ( at last !) got ouselves a favourable shift and quite frankly life couldnt have been more pleasant!

Well , perhaps thats not quite strictly true. Life would have been a BIT better if the shift had had the good manners to stay where it was . But it didnt. Gradually it veered more and more so that all those poor boats that had been jammed up against the Island on the wrong side of the shift became those boats that could now lay the Nab . Then we noticed the cumulus over the land . A bit late I hear you say? Yup its a sea breeze coming .The wind veered South of West and even if we did get it first , they became those blasted boats that could scream into the Nab at a hot angle whilst we struggled down on a dead run with oxygen masks dropping from the boom! We counted six Sigmas ahead of us . We got one when they gybed too early for the Nab , did a perfect inside peel for the shy reach home but for the knot in the shy kite ( no not a twist - a knot - its a long story!) but redeemed ourselves by taking another Sigma at the Forts and that wretched french X boat with a perfect (ie unknotted) peel on the line.

Amazingly we were 8th overall as well as in class , but 5th Sigma - which just shows you what an odd thing handicap racing is. Mind you , if the weather was always as nice as that I wouldnt mind coming 8th . Or would I ? Which just shows you what odd things we sailors are.

Icebergs in the channel for the St Malo race for a guaranteed first place?