Today was completely freezing and excellent at Whitstable: We arrived in time for the 11am start to find no water and no wind...... and that the start was really at 2pm!
Having atoned for the early start by getting mrsdrlee more coffee and met the Locists (and their T foil with its angle changed at the Sticky Weekend) at Elliots Cafe, we then rigged and hit the water.
There was some wind from NE and plenty of mostly flat water to burn around in, so that's what we did. The wind and waves got up to bidirectional twinnability level for most of the time during the racing though).
The course was a skew-wiff triangle with an incredibly short beat to begin, and a fair tide for good measure. We predicted pin end carnage as the port tackers would basically be laying the mark - unless a cheeky stbd tacker caused problems. We started towards the left of the line and were not over, unlke many. We got good speed for the 7 seconds (approx) it took to need to tack, but we overstood to avoid the million or so port tackers with whom a collision would be slow.
We got to the top with a much fancied Merlin named 'Brazilian', but the next leg was a kiteless fetch to a distant buoy. We got good t foil related speed (all good practice for the £$%^&* Mary in a couple of weeks) and were ahead of everyone as we bore away to hoist at the buoy. There was a small disaster as the foot tape of the kite caught under the bow requiring mrsdrlee to do a daring bow visit as a Dart 18 and 29er caned over us.
Soon we were at full blast and twinning and went the wrong way round the wind bend and the wrong way for the tidal sheer for the better pressure and clearer air offshore, getting to the bottom ahead after an absurdly early 'layline' judgement followed by an overcorrection.
The 'beat' was another fetch allowing for T foil capabilty and those crazy triangular waves to shake us around like a pair of lottery balls, and for us both to observe that we had lost sensation in our hands and feet as it was so bleeding cold.
At the top we looked back and saw Loco doing noble work of keeping up with the Dart 18.
The next lap had the first fetching leg a little tighter and a bit more wind, meaning a less hairy ride but less speed than last time. At the bear-away it was getting quite lumpy but we twinned again offshore for the more pressure, despite the clocking shift and the other factors suggesting an inshore route. The simple pleasure of completely maxing it in steady wind in a huge bit of water overcame quite how bloody freezing we were by this point.
At the bottom we went on for ages before gybing but still came in too high so ended up doing a little double on the way in to the mark. The fetch to the top was a bit freer with smoother sea this time.
At the top it was essentially close hauled to the bear away buoy. We chose the right again for the increased pressure down the run. Down this leg we lapped the Laser 2000 and most of the laser fleet who were basically sailing the rum line.
At the bottom we committed the school boy/girl error of soaking down to the mark while being swept up by the tide, with the first few lasers around to miss also. We elected to sail past the mark with the kite still up and sort ourselves out while the tide was at least pushing us towards the destination. I luffed us up to close hauled once the the patches were in the chute, and it went in ok but was not pretty.
Once we were sorted out we had only a couple of lasers to burn through the lee of before being finished not a moment too soon: It was great fun but we were both absolutely chilled to the core by this stage.
We got ashore and packed up as quickly as we could and got showered before the prizegiving. We had won the race and (because of that) the winter series too, so now we have a fab silver jug to add to the huge glass one from the Autumn Series.
I want to say that Whitstable is a lot like Cherub heaven - in fact it's even better than heaven because you don't even have to die before you can go there. This is a seriously friendly and organised club with interesting and interested other sailors. The bar chat is never dull, and there's always loads going on.
