RHKYC at NYYC - Jamie's story (2)

by Jamie McWilliam on 17 Sep 2009 OK, so that's enough practice! Real racing for the Cup starts tomorrow. Today was a very different day - it started off like before, with a medium WNW wind blowing and showing good signs of swinging into a SW sea breeze (and that was the forecast, too). So we headed off outside the bay for a bunch of practice starts and races, this time with an earlier kick-off of 1100 hrs - I guess because that's when the real race days start, so we might as well see what that's like. However, the breeze proved singularly uncooperative - instead of clocking round it simply died away during the first race, leading to a disappointing abandonment.

We had had two starts in about 6 knots out of 280 with a bit of boat bias, and the breeze forecast to go left, but the challenge in the light certainly seems to be the fact that the boats have an alarmingly wide tacking angle in this stuff, and holding a lane on the line on starboard looked to be quite hard work. So we started on port both times about halfway down the line, and popped out with great pace while the bulk of the fleet pinched away on starboard. The Royal Cork and the Kiwis joined in our game, and even through the breeze did clock left about 10 degrees, it died in the left first too and we were looking good when it was called off after about 15 minutes.

We then had a 30-minute break while waiting for the visibly approaching sea breeze to establish, and we spent the time doing a LOAD of light air sets, gybes and drops, which are a lot harder than the ones in 15-20 knots...

Anyway, the sea breeze filled in to about 8 knots across the track out of 220 and away we went into a sequence for a proper full-length practice race. The line was a hint pin biased and we decided we might as well give it a crack there for a change so we went for it and nailed it, apart from Bruno Trouble driving the French boat who started about a length and a half directly upwind of us, quite clearly over - as were half the fleet, but the Committee realised the sea breeze looked a bit dodgy and there might be no chance of getting a race in if they General Recalled it so they just let it go. Slightly miffing for us, I can tell you!

Never mind, off we went footing out from under the French but they were in an amazingly low mode and not going very fast with it, and by the time they finally tacked off about 8 minutes later we had both dropped 10 lengths on the pack, and the breeze was going right. URGH! Fortunately we were able to put her into high mode and claw our way back, and we rode a nice puff into the top mark on port to overcome a bit of the horror of a 15-degree righty and round in about 14th or so out of 19.

We set well and sailed down the long port gybe run, which was obviously now a bit off-kilter, and nothing much seemed to happen until we got to about 250 yards form the leeward gate when our decision to go to a hard layline and come in hot paid off in spades as the pack in front of us parked up on the approach and we picked off five of them and gained on the rest to round in 9th. The second beat was much shorter and not a lot happened, and then the breeze died away to almost nothing and we finally finished something like 9th in about two knots of breeze. The committee called it a day at that stage.

The rest of the day was a series of de-briefings arranged by local gurus Brad Dellenbaugh, Brad Read and Steve Benjamin, and a brilliantly staged and executed opening ceremony in a marquee on the water's edge. For those of us who subscribe to the 'What would you like the speeches to be about?' 'I'd like them to be about two minutes long, please' theory of ceremonies, this was spot on. And some decent nibbles to go with it.

So we're into the big stuff tomorrow, and the forecast is for colder, rainy, and MUCH windier breeze out of the North-East. The stars of today's race, who are obviously now in the frame as very serious contenders, were the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, but it's impossible to tell who is favourite. Every time I met another team this evening they seemed to be entirely populated with America's Cup and WMRT circuit guys - leading to one wag saying that “if this is an amateur event, they're the best paid amateurs in the world!'.

I still think it's going to be tough to beat the NYYC team, based on their Swan 42 experience and their local knowledge. But I don't think anybody will be surprised if after 11 races, 50+ points puts you in the hunt. There are no throw-outs, and I think any sort of cowboy behaviour is going to be seriously frowned upon as we are, after all, using private members' yachts.

Cheers from Newport
Jamie

RHKYC team:
Warwick Downes (Tactics/Skipper)
Jamie McWilliam (Driver)
Gary Gilbert (Nav)
Nick Burns (Main)
Ben Williams (Trimmer)
Suzanne Downes (Trmmer)
Rob McMillan (Trimmer, owner's rep, and owner of Quantum Sails Newport)
Joachim Isler (Pit)
Glenn Kim (Mast)
Gaston Chan (Mid-Bow)
Drew Taylor (Bow)