As our management committee carried out an extensive risk assessment of the sailing conditions, we sat munching our bacon sandwiches and watched wave after wave of rain batter the club house and almost continuous gusts of wind attempt to make off with the canopy. A course was decided upon, white sails only. We layered up and pulled on our coastal sailing gear, we all agreed it would be silly to go out and then waddled down to the trot boat.
There were 6 boats on the start line, 4 Sonatas and 2 Dragons, for a combined start which had been delayed by 30 minutes. The first mark was 34, down towards Rochester. Screwloose started with a reef in the mainsail, but BD2, Skipper, and Watersong decided a reef was unnecessary. As we were buffeted down to 34 we were pretty sure we had made the correct choice. Unfortunately, as we closed in on 34, the gusts dropped. Watersong rounded the mark first, closely followed by BD2. We were overtaken by Skipper and they rounded before us. As we headed back down to 32 we shook out the reef and somehow managed to regain third place.
The remainder of the race was two separate battles, BD2 snapping at the transom of Watersong and some distance behind Screwloose fending off Skipper. After 32 it was 30, 27, back to 29, then 25 and 24. Other than the wind and rain this passage of marks was relatively uneventful. After 24 our main sail made a strange noise and we looked around quizzically until we realised the outhaul had suffered an adverse event. We jumped into action as Paul shouted what were presumably instructions, he seemed happy so we got on with the repairs. Suddenly Paul proclaimed it was time to tack, I looked up to see we were bearing down on the cannon at Folly Point. A quick tack averted a Screwloose screw-up and the outhaul repairs were then quickly completed.
We headed back to the finish line, and more importantly the bar. Watersong took first place, followed closely by BD2. A few minutes behind, okay, half a mile, was Screwloose and then Skipper. It was a good afternoon of sailing, not too challenging given the initial expectations. The rain made a nice change after such a long dry hot spell.
Chris