Now the dust has settled on our abortive Fastnet campaign, it seemed a good idea to give a mention to the gear that really proved its worth, racing offshore in what has been an entire season of unusually demanding weather conditions.
In terms of personal kit, the Musto Thermal Base Layer
proved its worth: kept me warm and dry, and lived up to the promise of the Silver Ion technology: the long sleeved top and long johns didn't get smelly. And the little elastic loops on the sleeves are a Godsend when getting dressed in a hurry.
Generally speaking, the weather was too warm to merit a midlayer: what seemed the most effective clothing combination was non-cotton shorts worn over the thermals under the oilskins: this prevents the dreaded “yachtie bottie.”
Dubarry Goretex boots are an absolute must on the night watch: they keep your feet warm as well as dry, eliminate sweaty socks, and provide surefooted grip on a wet deck.
Henry Lloyd Offshore Goretex oilskins also lived up to all their promises, keeping even the worst weather firmly out. My only criticism is that the “owl vision” hood arrangement is just too effective: it limits peripheral vision, and I tended to wear a fleece hat instead, which let me see what I was doing, but inevitably resulted in the odd trickle of water down the back of the neck.
My favourite Gill gloves disappeared off the boat early in the season (a hazard of racing, where so many of the crew have near identical kit: a permanent marker pen is another essential!) so I have been wearing a pair of Azure gloves. They are slightly less expensive than the big name brands, but absolutely identical in terms of comfort and wear. Recommended.
The Spinlock Deckvest proved its worth as a comfortable and easily fitted lifejacket and harness, worn virtually all the time when racing. It generated a great deal of envy from the younger members of the crew, who thought it looked “cool” (even on me), too!
The boat - Grand Soleil 40 - was absolutely magnificent throughout. We did an awful lot of miles in sometimes quite extreme conditions, and the only breakages were a turning block at the foot of the mast (over-enthusiastic halyard trimming without releasing the sheet!) and a dyneema line on the kicker, which chafed through on a shackle. It was quickly retied with a bowline, and proved no further trouble. (It did make a very loud bang when it broke, though - those of us off watch below decks at the time thought the mast must have gone, at least!)
In fact the Sparcraft rig, Harken and Spinlock deck gear all proved equal to everything that was thrown at them. Our new suit of Quantum sails did a fantastic job: our only regret was that we never got the new 140 per cent genoa out of its bag in the consistently windy RORC races!
From an electronics point of view, we continued to have the odd niggles with our Raymarine ST60 instruments, which don't seem to hold their calibration consistently. However, we have no complaints at all about the Raymarine chart plotter (2002 model now obsolete) and Simrad DSC VHF radio, which did sterling service.
The Lowrance i-Finder H2Oc handheld GPS chartplotter was very useful on deck at times, but it is quite hungry on batteries.
The McMurdo Navtex 6+ was well worth the investment. It provides so much useful weather information that we're already wondering how we ever coped without it before. The dual frequency facility means there are always lots of forecasts to choose from.
In the southern North Sea we receive information from Britain, Netherlands, Belgium and France, and find that comparing and combining the lot of them provides a far better picture of what is going on than the Met Office Shipping and Inshore forecasts taken in isolation.
As far as the ultimate survival equipment is concerned, I'm extremely happy to say that we did not put the McMurdo Epirb or Avon Liferaft to the test, or need to grab the grab bag for that matter. But we remain pretty confident that, if the worst had come to the worst, they would have looked after us.
In a summer like this one, the exhaustive checklist of ORC Category Two does not seem like the overkill it might have appeared when we first set out a list of what we would need to bring the boat up to spec for the big race.
When you are out in a severe gale in the middle of the night, it's certainly comforting to know that everything you might need is on board - and thanks to the stowage chart and safety briefing, the crew know where it is and what to do with it, should they need to!
