Yesterday was a 16 knot forecast but when we arried there was nowt.
At the start it was possibly 10knots sswly with a foul tide. It was the last race of the autumn series. We were leading, on equal points with Sergei the MPS sailor. We were lucky enough to have Graham and Eddie in the Platypus named Scumbag sailing as our guests. The race officer was Simon Reynolds who set a committee boat start a fair way off the shore.
Scumbag and Antidote started at the left and headed left with a 29er, but the MPS's took the boat end though they headed left out of the tide. The MPS's looked good to begin with Sergei pointing well, and when we (Antidote) tacked back we crossed just behind. He continued lefter, but we'd tacked out because of patchy breeze. We had a good leg to near the stbd layline and tacked back clear ahead.
We gybed immediately after hoisting and piled out into the favourable stream and Sergei followed. Far from the air-mixing effects of the many cats, Merlins and Wanderers we were able to make the jump to lightspeed. We gybed back early to ensure we didn't overshoot (more problematic when approaching on stbd). I am glad we did because extra pressure curved us nearly down to the buoy.
The next few laps were characterised by us tipping it in on a tack and having to catch up and pass Sergei again, a late hoist because advanced cat-dodging was required, and a steady increase in the breeze. At about this time Scumbags jib tack came loose and the quickly popped ashore mid race to sort it out: Top effort. I think we should have a prize at opens for the person who shows the most grit - and the Scumbags won it yesterday, no doubt.
Finally, in quite a lot of wind, and immediately after completely stopping on the beat to allow a stbd tack cat to go by we finished. We went for our obligatory burn (18.6 knots max and huge amounts of air) and headed in. Half way there the mainsheet snapped and we did the first ears-first double teabag we've done in a long time.
Sadly the locoists are sailing today but we can't make it due to mrsdrlee being at work!