Nab Tower Race—Our first race of 2009 and against teams that had been racing throuh the winter. The wind was gusting to 25 knots and a flooding spring tide suggested this would be a cracking race. It was indeed a cracking race; with 10 minutes to the start requests for information from below were met with little response, later I learn’t that this was due to a cupboard door being opened at the same time as a gust of wind. Considering there were 2 crew members available to catch the contents I continue to feel that they should have caught at least 1 of the plates or the dozen eggs but they did not.

We crossed the line about 10 seconds late, whilst others suffered recalls, and we were soon doing 11 kts SOG. With the wind gusting to 30 kts I decided against a spinnaker as we surged down the Eastern Solent. Just over half of our class went for spinnakers so we saw some impressive broaches and a few wraps. About half way down the leg we noticed a batten coming loose on the main and we had to drop the sail, refix it and hoist again—this cost us afew minutes but was well executed by the crew.

We rounded Nab and began tacking back against gusts of up to 37 apparent and pulled back a few places. I joined the crew on the rail and a few minutes later suddenly found my feet in the water as the Helm was deceived by a gust and wave into heaving to. Calling out kind words of consolation I rejoined him in the cockpit and we tacked back onto course. (Do not try this trick on a less stable boat without prior consent of all the crew).

Once we had passed the Forts we we beat down the final leg in style except for 2 short tacks to round a mark before crossing the line at 11 kts SOG to come 18^th out of 25 in class.

Sunday saw us out in the Solent and the only yacht with a spinnaker up, with just 2 kts of true wind we flew the spinnaker on the lightweight sheet and then practised with the flying pig which responded well in light winds and even better as the breeze freshened to 15 kts.   

Posted: March 30th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
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Wild Spirit is now back in the water after her annual lift out.

Ocean Rigging have replaced all the standing rigging and incorporated modifications to the backstay adjustment to help give a few degrees higher pointing when beating into the wind. This step was taken after detailed consultations with a Naval Architect, the Sailmaker and the Riggers. The cost was significant and in combination with the new sails it really does work.

I have just returned from the annual RYA Yachtmaster Instructors Conference. A well attended and fairly interesting event, the inevitable ‘How’s business?’ question was frequently asked. As far as I can tell new yacht sales have stopped but other parts of the sailing game continue fairly well. Lymington Yacht Charter who look after Wild Spirit for me were certainly receiving bookings when I was sat in their office last week.

 One of the things about conferences is that there are trade stands with special offers and with up to 50% off I ended up buying new navigation instruements, charts, teaching aids etc–in fact I spent more than the cost of the conference, lets hope they really were bargains.

Marinas; however seem to be having a tougher time with special offers, particularly if you sign up for several years. It looks like Cowes week and the little Britain will be hit hard by sponsors withdrawing. If you or your company are interested in either of these I will give you a very reasonable quote. You may get a cheaper deal elsewhere, but we will still be in business on the day.

If you are a keen sailor with some experience and qualifications, but suddenly no job, you could consider working on a tall ship via the Sail Training Association. You don’t get paid much but it is good experience and looks well on a CV.

Our IRC Certificate for 2009 has changed to reflect the new sails and has gone down which is to our benefit. I queried this with Peter Sanders who made the new sails and on further research  found that the previous measurements we had been supplied with were wrong so we have been racing at a disadvantage for the last 3 years. This probably would not have made much difference for our Royal Ocean Racing Club results, although we may just have made the top 10, but for our RIR result of 124^th it would have made a significant difference.

The material used for these sails is similar to Mike Perham’s round the world attempt—see Practical Boat Owner Feb 2009 p70

Posted: January 26th, 2009 under Uncategorized.
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The first part of a Day Skipper and Competent Crew course was distinguished by good weather and we anchored overnight in Worbarrow Bay. We rowed ashore and walked up to Tyneham the village evacuated as part of the preparations for the D-Day landings. After having taken in the marvellous surroundings and seen the houses, church and school we returned through the woods towards the Bay only to come upon a Red Deer Stag who continued to graze oblivious of us stood 10 yards away.

You can only visit when the range isn’t firing and part of the course is to ascertain when this is without getting shot, fortunately the would be Day Skippers passed this bit OK.

Our other stops included Studland and Cowes in a programme which had to be modified due to less wind than forecast.

The first weekend in September was a windy one and we swapped from the Royal Ocean Racing Club race to Cherbourg to the Junior Offshore Group one to Poole. This involved merely beating out of the Solent into a gale as opposed to crossing the whole channel against one. There were numerous retirements and we were happy to finish 12^th out of the 25 who had entered. The return race from Poole to Cowes was 27 miles and we had the Spinnaker up almost all the way in 20kts of wind. We came 8^th out of the 25 entered in the class covering the 27 miles in 2 hrs and 46 minutes and one second—just under 10 kts speed over ground which included some exciting surfing, one minor spinnaker wrap and a couple of minor broaches.

Posted: September 8th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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We set off to the east on the Sunday morning and running with the tide we hit 10 knots over the ground with our novice Helm Janine on duty. We rounded Bembridge and headed south towards St Vaast, the wind dropped but later returned for a good run acrosss arriving just after midnight.

On the Monday we set off around mid day and sailed along the coast on a gentle northerly passing Utah plus Omaha beaches and then on to Arrowmanche where we crept in and dropped anchor in Port Winston, the harbour created just after D-Day.

We were alone and blessed with a superb sunset and quiet night. In the morning I ran the crew ashore in the tender and they visited the fascinating museum whilst I cleaned up Wild Spirit and hoped that when we pulled up the hook there wouldn’t be a bomb on the end.

The wind freshened from the west which was definitely not forecast and I became concerned we might not make it back to St Vaast before the Gates closed. As one of the crew was ex navy I thought I would hoist the Blue Peter, which he would know, meant we had to go. In the absence of a big Blue Peter I used the JOG battle flag and thought sure they would at least phone me. I rang all the mobile phones and found most were on board, whilst Geoff had his off as he was in the museum. The only effect was to give all the tourists on the front more photo opportunities.

We left at the original time and I calculated we needed to make almost 6 kts to get there on time, fortunately the wind backed to South West and soon we were sailing at 8 knots and bang on course. The sun shone and we arrived an hour and a half before the gates closed.

The meal in the Fuschia was as good as ever and after a good night we completed our wine shopping at Grosellins had a good lunch out and set sail at 1600 with a fine westerly wind. The forecasts varied but it was clear the weather would break probably with a N or NW wind and squalls. With this in mind we headed more or less towards St Catts making up to 9.5 knots over the ground at times. Around midnight as we were close to St Catts the wind turned to the North and increased. By now we were close in and sailing fast towards Bembridge, we rounded this as the tide turned and shot across to Stokes Bay where we dropped anchor around 0200and had a few hours sleep before our run home.

An excellent trip and one we will try and repeat next year, possibly with another couple of days so we can pop into Honfleur as well.

Posted: March 25th, 2008 under Uncategorized.
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All 3 training weekends were marked by superb weather. The first concentrated on recovery of MOBs which is something I take rather seriously. Eventually a degree of competence was acheived and several attempts would have passed the YM exam. 

The second weekend was too windy on the Saturday for spinnaker practice but did give us the chance to hone our manouvering skills. Sunday was superb for spinnaker work and John our experienced super Bow man took the lead and, to his credit, continued to coach and develop the team even after the pole had bounced on his head twice. ‘Superb Entertainment; a fascinating lesson in Vocabulary’  The Solent Spectator

Our third training weekend saw westerlies up to F7 and we used the Heavy weather plus storm sails. The Drogue was used and with the wheel locked we were able to steer with it.

Posted: January 6th, 2008 under Sailing Report.
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