1st Thursday Series 1/11
A race not without controversy and some misunderstanding.
As eight boats gathered for the start in the vicinity of KB
Drystack there was a nice gentle westerly force 3ish blowing. Tide was fairly neutral. Perfect for an evening race. Now for the course announcement and the source of possible misunderstanding. I cannot speak for others, but our understanding of the announcement and the course written on the board was that we were to use Course 4 (Start, BT-P, KB-P, BT-P, KB-P passing, YO- P, PSC-P, finish) from the sheet, but omit the class line start between Haslar and Yola and to start from where the committee boat was stationed. It seemed like a sensible and good course to us apart from the fact that the start line and beat was skewed. Others obviously understood the course directions differently.
At the start the committee boat end of the line wasfavoured. Z54 nailed the start, Z74 got away nicely too. Not having been expecting to be asked to write a race report, I did not make note of the order of rounding the windward mark, but a number of the usual suspects got around ahead of us who were somewhere in the middle of the fleet. Downwind to KB where we dropped the spinnaker in anticipation of rounding and returning upwind to BT, but wait, what is going on? Five of the fleet were continuing directly towards YO some having dropped and then re-hoisting their spinnakers. Panic on board Z68, had we misread the course? Quickly finding the course sheet and checking confirmed our original thoughts were correct. So, we decided to continue to sail that course along with two other boats Z74 and Z76. A short port tack leg and then tack for the mark. The wind was now dropping and progress slowed Z76 rounding just ahead of Z74 and then Z68, down to KB with a close battle between Z76 and Z74, I think that Z76 held their lead all the way to YO. With the wind coming off the wall, it was light and shifty, making slow progress up to PSC, still close between Z74 and Z76, but Z76 again rounded in the lead. We were not too far behind. Now the final reach to the finish line.
Z74 decided to put pressure on Z76, which meant that they both set of on atight spinnaker reach back in towards the wall. I decided that we did not want to go anywhere near the wall as the feeble offshore breeze might get even more feeble by the Haslar buildings, we maintained a fairly direct line from PSC to the outer end of the finish line, in the hope of catching a few puffs. Slow progress, but eventually the hoped-for puffs arrived and we gradually pulled ahead of the two boats above us. Taking the hooter confirmed that we might have taken the intended course and even more surprisingly it might even be a very rare win for Z68! We had still been unsure whether we were doing the right thing after the split in the fleet. I am sorry that I did not keep track of the five boats that sailed a different course to ourselves. Z74 eventually gybed out from the wall and crossed the line ahead of Z76.
Back to the club bar where there was much discussion and muttering. Protest forms/ requests for redress were written by various skippers (see image) the outcome of which will be settled in the future! The provisional results have now been posted.
John Hartley, Z68