We've managed to sail hundreds of miles so far this summer, what with 300 RORC race qualifying miles, and all the associated delivery/return trips, and a bit of team training and even the odd cruise thrown in. But almost all of it has been either in too much wind (or very rarely not enough) and rain, to boot.
So we feared the worst when we left the marina on Saturday morning with yet another “SW 6-7, rain then showers” shipping forecast ringing in our ears. The only saving grace was that this time we would be off the wind - doing the annual Haven Series Britannia Trophy passage race from Harwich to Lowestoft.
Conditions at the start were lively, to say the least, and we were glad we'd taken the conservative option, crossing the line under plain sail, when we were forced to gybe twice in quick succession. But as one of the bigger boats in the fleet, we were soon in our own space with clear air and plenty of sea room, and able to get the spinnaker up, and after that we were flying.
The promised rain never came. In fact the sun shone for quite a lot of the day, and we were soon peeling off our oilies and saying: “You won't get a better trip than this up here for a few years!”
We celebrated taking line honours, but knew that with an off the wind race, mostly with fair tide, the prizes were going to go to the boats at the opposite end of the handicap spectrum. We didn't care. We'd had a fantastic sail - averaging ten knots over the ground for most of the course. It was one of those days that justifies all the time, money and effort that goes into running the boat.
It's a relatively new experience, being out in front. We started racing, as most people do, with a small boat, and even when we were doing really well on handicap, we could still watch what everyone else was doing ahead of us.
If in doubt, you could look through binoculars as the first boat rounded the mark and see it was a port pole hoist. You could watch them being swept sideways on the tide, and decide to go a bit higher, and so on. But once you are in front, you have to think it all out for yourself!
There's a well known Peyton cartoon of a Fireball helm being attacked by his crew as the fleet all disappear behind them: “Fist time all season we're in front and you go and forget the ****** course.” A framed copy was given to Richard many years ago when it happened to him, the first time he was ever in front - in a Fireball. But in a yacht the onus is not on the helm, but the navigator - me ¬- to go the right way.
In this particular race remembering the course wasn't much of a problem: basically “keep Suffolk on the left.” It's a lovely, scenic route, passing Woodbridge Haven, Orford Haven, the Orford Ness lighthouse and then Aldeburgh, the Sizewell power stations, Dunwich and Southwold, before reaching the eastern-most port in England.
And we were fortunate in having the guy who wrote the sailing instructions in our crew, so there was no danger of getting the finish line wrong. But it still concentrates the mind.
Did we hang on to the big spinnaker too long? Would we have benefited from swapping to the asymmetric sooner? (Sod's law of the sea: after struggling to keep the big one set with the wind moving progressively towards the beam, no sooner had we changed than it shifted back behind us!)
It's actually only by racing that you find these things out - and you also come to understand why the people who get it consistently right are paid such enormous sums to call the shots on the professional, big boat circuit. But would it still be as much fun, if it was “just a job” - or if your bonus depended on the results, and the handicaps were against you?
We had a great evening at the Royal Norfolk and Suffolk YC, where there is always a warm welcome, and then the crowning touch came when the wind turned easterly, giving us a fair wind to get home, too! It did rain for a while on the return trip, otherwise the weekend would have been perfect.
