Jamie Mc in Cowes with 'three packs of snarling, pumped-up raceboats'

by Jamie McWilliam on 20 Aug 2010 Well, if you didn't like today's race, it's time you quit sailing and took up golf. Or bowling. Sun, breeze, phasing shifts, and three packs of snarling, pumped-up raceboats. Classic. The fact that the racecourse got a bit skewed for some long starboards instead of pure beats was a shame but that's life...

Obviously the overall point situation and the tactics we might employ to achieve our goal of winning the event dominated the pre-race briefing. The Irish have good boats, good modes, and are sailing beautifully. We are in the same situation but the simple fact remains that they are just doing it a bit better than us in these conditions - we would definitely prefer it to be either light or WILD. It's looking more and more like the pair of us are fighting for it, with GBR Red and France Blue clinging on with some excellent boats but not quite the full three-boat programme. Of course, things can change but that's how it looks right now. The option of going hard against the Irish pre-start remains in our minds, but as today was a single-weighted race round the cans, that seemed like overkill when only 60% through the regatta, so we went for a straightforward 'let's stick in the scores and look at aggression tomorrow' strategy.

So off to just North-West of Brambles Bank for the split-class start sequence for the Rolex Race, around the cans in the Solent for about three hours. The breeze was blowing anywhere from 16-22kn out of about 225, just as forecast, and the line was dead square.

While waiting for our start we watched Class 1 as usual, and at 50 seconds to go Mandrake looked damn skinny for the pin but they got the hammer down and into groove in exemplary fashion and nailed it, slowly but surely squeezing off Antix, the Irish Ker 39, above them and leading the big boat Alice 2 into the Island shore to avoid the first of the flood and look for the port lift off the land. Alice flipped onto port before Mandrake and the boys set up on their hip. At the top mark they were in good shape on both the water and on corrected, and they spent the rest of the race juggling between taking their shifts and dumping on Antix, but the Irish boat was just too competitive in the pressure and at the end there wasn't enough room between them, Antix winning from her sistership Inis Mor with Mandrake in third. A measure of the performance of the winners was that even the French Grand Soleil 43, for whom this was perfect conditions, couldn't get within a minute of the Mandrake boys. But it was the Kers' day in Class 1.

In Class 2 we liked the way Mandrake had addressed the first beat so went for the same programme, but Marinerscove had their setup absolutely perfect, and as Blondie approached on port from outside the pin with about a minute to go we were faced with the decision of going past them and setting up on their hip or going before them for a damn tight lay to the pin.

We chose the latter, largely because Quokka was above them rolling fast on starboard already, but it was bloody close to a disaster as it was only through a bit of epic trim and helm combo between Pat, Tom and Marty that we got above the pin and footed hard to get though Mariners and arc it for the island shore. The funny thing was that we were assisted by Mariners having to stick it into crazy high mode to avoid being rolled by Quokka, and even with a bit of a righty we were able to come out of the island shore and almost cross Mariners - to be honest we might have actually been across them but the risk/reward was bad so we tacked into a savage leebow and they immediately bailed.

Once up to speed we went on their hip and slammed into the ugly Solent chop for about 10 minutes within a few lengths of them. One of the funny things about sailing in ugly waves is that the trick is not to sail in a way that your boat feels good, but to fight the 'Christ, this feels TERRIBLE' thoughts running through your head and remember that the competition is feeling the same pain. Whoever deals with it best wins. Pat and Tom were in a frenzy of combined effort, and everybody on the rail was hiking like their lives depended on it, and we simply did it better than Mariners to slowly but surely roll over them, until they chucked a tack and we slammed right in their face, forcing them into an unpleasant double tack. These are the moment that make an event of this calibre so rewarding: it's not like you just rolled some weekend warrior in a cruising boat: this was the 2-time UK IRC Champion, and it counts. Classic.

In the meantime Quokka and La Reponse had been working on our port hip to no avail, and after a couple more tacks we gybe set round the top mark for a 3.6nm run to the mainland shore, where again the symmetric kite boats rolled down inside us, but with a nice righty puff we almost laid into the bottom mark and got round with a decent lead, although still tight on handicap, especially with Quokka and La Reponse.

The next beat was more like a fetch, and the focus was on maintaining a high mode with Mariners, and even though from off the boats I bet it looked like nothing happened, onboard it was an Etchells-style epic of inches and feet all the way back to the island where we again got round in good shape for another gybe set back to England. On this one it looked a bit bleak about halfway down as Mariners rolled deep in a puff behind us and they had a chance to get on our air after we gybed - but they didn't take it, and we dived for the right to escape, catching the last of the puff and extending into the bottom mark. Whew!

After one more beat and run we finally headed for the beat home, and the tough call was the layline across the tide: we held a bit conservative as the Class 1 fleet ahead was light and knocked on starboard into the finish at the Squadron. As we headed over in the building flood, it was now us, now them, against Mariners, but finally the last shift was a righty in pressure and they laid home to nip us on corrected by 30 seconds. The pair of us wound up third and fourth, as GBR Red La Reponse won by over 2 minutes from Quokka ahead of both of us. Tough, but tough to figure how we could have gained that much - the winners obviously had a blinder and fair play to them, it was their day.

The Class 3 story is shorter but more complex (no kidding!): Rockall came off the boat end, went LUNATIC high and fast against everybody, and had a comical lead of about four minutes at the top mark. We (and I bet everybody else out there) watched in amazement at this truly spectacular performance. They then proceeded to extend all the way round, right up to the point where the rest of the trailing fleet rounded one top mark to starboard instead of port, and headed on up the beat as Rockall headed off downwind under kite. What the???!!! It turned out the Race Committee had decided to change the course for Class 3, but Rockall had not got the news. So they got the kite down and headed back upwind, finally finishing in stunned silence 13 minutes behind the leader, for ninth overall. Soul-destroying stuff.

But the Rockall boys are fighters and know the score, and with the able assistance of our rules advisor Peter Jolly they requested redress and at about 8.30pm this was confirmed, due to a failure by the Race Committee to display the required 'C' flag. I'm sure there's more to it, but that is the gist. So Rockall got reinstated into a clear first by over 3 minutes, and dead right too. Roxy the Irish boat was second.

Brilliant day. Great weather, great competition, great scores. Hard to beat. HK had 1,3,4, against Ireland 1,2,3, and while Ireland extended from us we have now extended over third. Ireland are on 48, we're on 79.5, and France Blue on 97, with GBR Red on 104. There are 105 points available between the 3 boats on each team in the remaining two races, so by NO means is the event over, although our tactics are now clear: it's sort of out of our hands. We need to stick in major scores, and the Irish need to have some problems. While not wanting to wish gear failure on fellow sailors, it certainly wouldn't go amiss if they had some minor issues! Anyway, we're up for it. Spirits are high, and the forecast is for some BIG breeze, and that always seems to work well for us.

More tomorrow, cheers from Cowes!