beancounter
Well-Known Member
The Beancounter\'s day out..
Thursday August 7th, 7.15 am, Red Jet Ferry Terminal, Southampton. I’m standing at the boarding gate, looking out over a grey, overcast, windless Southampton Water. Not a promising start to the day’s sailing. The hall is fairly empty, although a cheerful young lady who joins the queue informs me that it will be different in about 15 minutes. Sure enough, by the time the 7.45 ferry arrives, the queue is right across the hall. Be-suited business types mingle with journeyman racing crew, the latter in team rugby shirts, clutching sailing bags in one hand, and steaming cups of coffee in the other.
I arrive at Cowes with plenty of time to spare before my rendezvous, so I head for a coffee shop in Cowes High Street to kill some time over a reviving brew. An Italian race-boat’s crew sit at the next table, in slick yachting gear and serious shades. I can’t decide whether their voluble Italian chatter concerns tactics for the day’s race, or the relative merits of the young ladies walking past…
Nine o’clock sees me at the Sunsail hospitality desk, meeting my hosts, fellow crew, and Tony, our skipper. Of the six crew, three of us have done some sailing before, and three are complete novices. We’re given our team t-shirts and baseball caps – sigh. In short order, we’re aboard the Sunfast 37 having a safety briefing. I’ve never seen so much GRP and sailcloth packed into such a small area. Getting a boat out of West Cowes marina must resemble one of those puzzles where you have to slide one piece around to make way for another. Everywhere is noise and bustle; the racing crews moving purposefully around the pontoons and boats, with the occasional corporate hospitality guest looking lost and bemused amidst all the activity.
Somehow Tony extracts us from the press of boats, and we head out towards Gilkicker point, where our race is due to start at 11.00. En route we practice tacking and gybing. Tony reckons that we are handling this OK, so decides that we will fly the spinnaker during the race, and instructs us accordingly. Duties for the race are assigned; Maurice and William, who have sailed before, are given the roles of helm and foredeck man respectively (William having admitted in an unguarded moment that he had flown a spinnaker on his Trapper – twice in 12 years of ownership). I am appointed mainsheet trimmer and relief helm. Paul, Samantha and Louise (the rookies) are given winching and hauling duties.
Our start is delayed – we watch the Clipper fleet slice across the line in the freshening breeze. The clouds have gone, the sun is shining, and the wind is a Force 3 – 4 South to South-West. Perfect.
The 10-minute gun goes, and we’re in a press of boats. In my dinghy-sailing days, the slow handicap fleet was 10 or so disparate boats bobbing about on the reservoir. Here, we are in the thick of over fifty identical 37-footers jockeying for position. Forget any idea that a corporate hospitality race is a bit of a jolly. The Skippers want to win, and some of the boats seem to be carrying enough testosterone to float the Ark Royal. Somehow we survive unscathed, but, much to Tony’s chagrin, cross the line mid-fleet.
Approaching the windward mark, we realise that we’ve not made sufficient allowance for the tide pushing us onto the buoy. Two tacks later, we’ve cleared the mark, but lost four places. Now we’re onto a reach, and the skipper decides that we’ll give the kite a try. This is greeted with more than a few apprehensive looks, but the hoist goes faultlessly. We’re starting to gain on the boats in front, who are sticking to white sails only. “Hah – bunch of wimps” “We’re reeling them in!” “Yay!” – however, the gods frown on such sentiments. The relevant deities, Aeolus and Poseidon, being Greek, are well aware of the sin of “hubris”…
The wind shifted and increased a little; suddenly I’m dumping the main as fast as I can, as the boat heels further and further over. The spinnaker gets closer to the water – I can hear the Scots voice of Louise, up on the coaming behind me, shouting “I dooon’t like this!” Somehow things settle down, and a chastened crew head off for the next mark. Here, emboldened once more, we gybe the spinnaker and gain five places as other boats wrestle their kites up.
And so the afternoon progressed – we’d been so busy that we forgot our packed lunch till about two o’clock. But it didn’t matter. The sun was streaming down, there was a good sailing breeze, and we were having a ball. Eventually our final leg takes us up towards the Royal Yacht Squadron, where we sneak an extra place by scraping past the line marker as the other boat fails to make the mark and has to tack. Sails in and stowed, lines and fenders out, and we head into the Medina about four-thirty. We were berthed, cleared up, and into the bar by five o’clock. The first pint of ice-cold beer barely touched the sides on the way down.
A little later, I stroll amongst the hurly-burly on the quayside, looking at the throng of movers and shakers, people seeing and being seen. A bit different to life on the East Coast, I reflect…. To cheer myself up, I phone my son – “I’m standing in the sunshine at Cowes, with a cold beer in hand, having had a cracking day’s sailing – how was your day in the office…?”
Some pictorial evidence:
Acting as windward rail ballast:
[image]
[/image]
Trimming the main on a spinnaker run:
[image]
[/image]
We'd just overhauled these at the mark:
[image]
[/image]
We're being followed:
[image]
[/image]
Aerobatics over Cowes:
[image]
[/image]
Not enough room to swing a compass, let alone a cat:
[image]
[/image]
Thursday August 7th, 7.15 am, Red Jet Ferry Terminal, Southampton. I’m standing at the boarding gate, looking out over a grey, overcast, windless Southampton Water. Not a promising start to the day’s sailing. The hall is fairly empty, although a cheerful young lady who joins the queue informs me that it will be different in about 15 minutes. Sure enough, by the time the 7.45 ferry arrives, the queue is right across the hall. Be-suited business types mingle with journeyman racing crew, the latter in team rugby shirts, clutching sailing bags in one hand, and steaming cups of coffee in the other.
I arrive at Cowes with plenty of time to spare before my rendezvous, so I head for a coffee shop in Cowes High Street to kill some time over a reviving brew. An Italian race-boat’s crew sit at the next table, in slick yachting gear and serious shades. I can’t decide whether their voluble Italian chatter concerns tactics for the day’s race, or the relative merits of the young ladies walking past…
Nine o’clock sees me at the Sunsail hospitality desk, meeting my hosts, fellow crew, and Tony, our skipper. Of the six crew, three of us have done some sailing before, and three are complete novices. We’re given our team t-shirts and baseball caps – sigh. In short order, we’re aboard the Sunfast 37 having a safety briefing. I’ve never seen so much GRP and sailcloth packed into such a small area. Getting a boat out of West Cowes marina must resemble one of those puzzles where you have to slide one piece around to make way for another. Everywhere is noise and bustle; the racing crews moving purposefully around the pontoons and boats, with the occasional corporate hospitality guest looking lost and bemused amidst all the activity.
Somehow Tony extracts us from the press of boats, and we head out towards Gilkicker point, where our race is due to start at 11.00. En route we practice tacking and gybing. Tony reckons that we are handling this OK, so decides that we will fly the spinnaker during the race, and instructs us accordingly. Duties for the race are assigned; Maurice and William, who have sailed before, are given the roles of helm and foredeck man respectively (William having admitted in an unguarded moment that he had flown a spinnaker on his Trapper – twice in 12 years of ownership). I am appointed mainsheet trimmer and relief helm. Paul, Samantha and Louise (the rookies) are given winching and hauling duties.
Our start is delayed – we watch the Clipper fleet slice across the line in the freshening breeze. The clouds have gone, the sun is shining, and the wind is a Force 3 – 4 South to South-West. Perfect.
The 10-minute gun goes, and we’re in a press of boats. In my dinghy-sailing days, the slow handicap fleet was 10 or so disparate boats bobbing about on the reservoir. Here, we are in the thick of over fifty identical 37-footers jockeying for position. Forget any idea that a corporate hospitality race is a bit of a jolly. The Skippers want to win, and some of the boats seem to be carrying enough testosterone to float the Ark Royal. Somehow we survive unscathed, but, much to Tony’s chagrin, cross the line mid-fleet.
Approaching the windward mark, we realise that we’ve not made sufficient allowance for the tide pushing us onto the buoy. Two tacks later, we’ve cleared the mark, but lost four places. Now we’re onto a reach, and the skipper decides that we’ll give the kite a try. This is greeted with more than a few apprehensive looks, but the hoist goes faultlessly. We’re starting to gain on the boats in front, who are sticking to white sails only. “Hah – bunch of wimps” “We’re reeling them in!” “Yay!” – however, the gods frown on such sentiments. The relevant deities, Aeolus and Poseidon, being Greek, are well aware of the sin of “hubris”…
The wind shifted and increased a little; suddenly I’m dumping the main as fast as I can, as the boat heels further and further over. The spinnaker gets closer to the water – I can hear the Scots voice of Louise, up on the coaming behind me, shouting “I dooon’t like this!” Somehow things settle down, and a chastened crew head off for the next mark. Here, emboldened once more, we gybe the spinnaker and gain five places as other boats wrestle their kites up.
And so the afternoon progressed – we’d been so busy that we forgot our packed lunch till about two o’clock. But it didn’t matter. The sun was streaming down, there was a good sailing breeze, and we were having a ball. Eventually our final leg takes us up towards the Royal Yacht Squadron, where we sneak an extra place by scraping past the line marker as the other boat fails to make the mark and has to tack. Sails in and stowed, lines and fenders out, and we head into the Medina about four-thirty. We were berthed, cleared up, and into the bar by five o’clock. The first pint of ice-cold beer barely touched the sides on the way down.
A little later, I stroll amongst the hurly-burly on the quayside, looking at the throng of movers and shakers, people seeing and being seen. A bit different to life on the East Coast, I reflect…. To cheer myself up, I phone my son – “I’m standing in the sunshine at Cowes, with a cold beer in hand, having had a cracking day’s sailing – how was your day in the office…?”
Some pictorial evidence:
Acting as windward rail ballast:
[image]
Trimming the main on a spinnaker run:
[image]
We'd just overhauled these at the mark:
[image]
We're being followed:
[image]
Aerobatics over Cowes:
[image]
Not enough room to swing a compass, let alone a cat:
[image]
