horatio_nelson
New member
A wise move with the socks! They are excellent. I bought myself some ski goggles for when the sea starts throwing buckets of water straight in my face
Cervantes Trophy
- Thread starter Moonshining
- Start date
A wise move with the socks! They are excellent. I bought myself some ski goggles for when the sea starts throwing buckets of water straight in my face
bitbaltic
Well-known member
I have:
Two pairs of sealskins socks (crikey! How expensive are they!), two pairs of their waterproof gloves, a pair of musto gloves, a waterproof cap, a wooly hat, a sou'wester (!), a balaclava, a snood, and four layers of clothing. Off down south now. I'll be the toasty-looking chap in Inseyandra (probably volunteer as Cook so I get an inside job!)
Cheers
bitbaltic
Well-known member
A wise move with the socks! They are excellent. I bought myself some ski goggles for when the sea starts throwing buckets of water straight in my face
Love it but I'd have to draw the line there
the inside of a pub looks much better than any sea that needs to be viewed through goggles Cheers
horatio_nelson
New member
And off down the Solent we go
horatio_nelson
New member
Did you see me wave at you? We passed you on your port side approx half way down the Solent
How did you get on? I'll write a more detailed report once I've recovered a bit. Hope all Scuttlebutters had a safe and enjoyable race, would live to hear how it went for you all!
bitbaltic
Well-known member
Did you see me wave at you? We passed you on your port side approx half way down the Solent
I'll write a more detailed report once I've recovered a bit. Hope all Scuttlebutters had a safe and enjoyable race, would live to hear how it went for you all!
Brilliant but exhausted!
horatio_nelson
New member
Excellent
give us a bit more detail once you've had a chance to recover. Nice one!
Moonshining
Active member
Did you see me wave at you? We passed you on your port side approx half way down the Solent
I'll write a more detailed report once I've recovered a bit. Hope all Scuttlebutters had a safe and enjoyable race, would live to hear how it went for you all!
No, I didn't. That's a shame. Although half way down the Solent may have been when the bowsprit let go in a shower of carbon fibre bits. That was a bit distracting and took any idea of competition out of things, because we did the rest of that leg without the nice asymmetric thingie and watched nearly everyone disappear into the distance. There was some excitement when we overtook a couple of boats during the night, but that was about it.
Anyway, that was the only incident, which was good. (Although the cost of a new bowsprit was a blow for the guy who's boat it is).
I'm still trying to decide whether I enjoyed it or not. It was definitely a physical and mental challenge - which I suppose is the point. The initial beat down the channel was hard work and daunting for someone like me, who hadn't done it before. Biggest disappointment was probably that we were about seven miles out when the committee boat announced that he was heading off and we had to report our own times. It would have been nice to have had a proper finish to the race.
Twister_Ken
Well-known member
Standard practice. They'd run out of gin or tonic or ice or lemon and needed fresh supplies.
horatio_nelson
New member
Oh, sorry to hear that
Bear in mind it's deliberately made to be tough (eg upwind, dark, long) to test your mettle for Fastnet etc. The first leg was fantastic, we got a bad start, and were right at the back, then finally got the asymmetric up and chose our tactics and got going - we overtook half the field (passing you in the process) doing about ten knots Took us three hrs to get to the buoy off St Alban's, once we'd rounded that we settled into 4hr on / 2hr off watch system. A few special moments overnight, ghosting past green lights in the dark (we went far south to get the tide). Last couple of hrs were good too. We got in at about 7.30am. Most crews made straight for the yacht club it became an enormous piss-up
I enjoyed the sail home much more - we left Sunday eve, beam reaching the whole way, back in Portsmouth inside 12hrs!
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bitbaltic
Well-known member
I also felt the windward beat from St Albans to Le Havre was a challenge, though it was helming at night, in wind and rain, that I found the biggest thing to overcome. I'm not used to sailing out of sight of land (although I am used to night sailing) so steering in a narrow VMG slot, with the boat heeing and slamming, and a little red wind instrument staring at me like an angry eye was a big learning curve. But looking back on it even that bit was brilliant, and of course it is all about prepping crews for the fastnet.
We were in a Bavaria 46, with the outboard still on the rail, and we didn't fly a spinnaker in the solent, so we were hardly competitive
. as soon as we got out of the Solent and entered open sea con ditions we also lost two crew to seasickness and didn't get them back until we were beating past the cardinal into Le Havre. We also missed Ocean One, (I shall have Ocado deliver extra gin, tonic water and pimms no. 1 to the castle in adevance of the next race to ensure their continued participation) and were disappointed about that- I think our skipper spoke to yours over the VHF at that point. As a scratch crew with some fairly inexperienced people we did ok, racing the boat itself rather than the others around us.horatio_nelson said:
Me too. We had the wind on the quarter, and nearly 10 kn of boatspeed. We also got our seasick crew back to give them encouragement for the next race, which is important.
I have a family holiday booked when Myth of Malham is on so my next race is the De Guingand Bowl. How about you guys?
Cheers
tat27
Member
Loved this thread - I have done numerous of these cross channel races (usually as a bowman) and although I don't miss it much I love reading other peoples updates. Probably a sign of getting old....
Twister_Ken
Well-known member
Ditto, though I was never allowed on the foredeck. Trimmer/Naviguesser.
Moonshining
Active member
Yep, your skipper did speak to ours at the end of the race. I think I was resting my eyes leaning against a leecloth at the time, wondering if the world was ever going to be level, or if I should just get used to a life at 45 degrees.
Polka is doing the Myth of Malham and the Cowes Dinard St Malo races before Fastnet. Neither of them really fit with my schedule and the Fastnet isn't really on, although the fact that I'm disappointed probably means that I've been bitten by the bug.