Channel Sailing Regatta

I interrupt my trip to Slovenia again to relate another experience I had recently.

Middle of October is the time when Channel Sailing organises its annual regatta for clients.  Channel Sailing is the company where we hire the boats that we sail with during the year.  Every year, at the end of the season, they organise a regatta for their clients.  It is competitive, but it is also friendly and offers an opportunity to those who are not used to race to get a little excitement in controlled conditions.

Well, controlled conditions is maybe not quite the best way to describe what we had again this year.

As usual, we arrived on Friday evening to take possession of our boat for the week-end, in this case Foxtrot, a 37 foot Jeanneau

By the time Nick and I get everything organised, it is drink time.  First we have to have some snack, so we dig into the lunch supplies for cheese and salami

Nick brought some excellent Rum.  Since the beer is not cold yet, and Xavier has not brought the wine, we have no choice!

Allan and Annemie joined us later and we went for a very nice dinner in Zeebrugge.

The next day, Saturday, the wind has picked-up significantly and it rains occasionally.  Sailing will be tough! After the briefing, at about 10:30, we sail out of Zeebrugge into the North Sea.  Even this close to shore, the waves are high (3+ meters) and because of the harbour and shore, are not very regular.

Since we are running with the wind, Nick asks Allan and I to set up the spinnaker pole to hold the genoa.  It is a struggle as we have not done it for a while and make a few mistakes, but we get it done.  Unfortunately, both Allan and I are now a little seasick and with the weather and waves, there is little chance to recover…

As we approach the committee boat, we manage to take down the pole and sail normally.  There are only 4 boats today and we get ready for the first race.  Nick is steering and we all help as we can.  I am still coping, but Allan is looking greener by the minute.  On top of that, it is getting colder and we are all struggling to stay warm.

We get a good start and head for the windward mark – with the high waves, we can only see the mark when both it and us are at the top of a wave, so finding it is not easy.  However, at least we have a rough idea where it is, so we head in that direction.  As we get closer, we finally spot it and head for it.  We are second as we round the mark and head on a reach toward the next marker that we expect is to the left of the first mark.  After several minutes, we see nothing.  We head upwind to search there with no success.  the rest of the fleet seems to be mystified as well.  One by one, the boats give up and start running back to the committee boat and the leeward mark.  Nick does not ask us to set up the spinnaker pole – good – I feel woozy and that would spell the end of my breakfast.

We find the leeward mark but then the committee boat cancels the race.  We find out that they could not set the second mark and therefore we should only do an up and down, just like the America’s cup.

Is is now noon and we have not had a complete race yet.  We get ready for the first race again.  Good start, we now know where to find the first mark which we reach in second place.  Back  to the leeward mark, which we almost missed until Allan saw it than the finish line and we come in second! Good result.  I am surviving (just) but Allan is very cold now.  We have a long debate but decide to do one more race then stop regardless of what the organisation does.  Over the radio, they indicate that the next race will be just start-windward mark-finish, no leeward mark. We ‘survive’ again the last race, finish second again and then head for home … which will take more than one hour since we are heading into the wind and into the tide.

As soon as we arrive inside Zeebrugge harbor, I feel better!  We finally tie-up at about 17:00.  The rest of the fleet is right behind us as there was no additional race – wise decision.

The next day, the wind is down, the sun is slowly coming out, but the temperature is even lower.  It is only 5 C and with wind still at 20-30 km/hr, the windchill is very low.  We are fortunately equipped for it as demonstrated by Xavier and Nick.

We do five races on Sunday.  we win two, finish second, third and fourth in the other three.  We all get to steer a race.  For mine, we take a terrible start as I am blocked away from the start line by the other boats and have to do a 360 at the last second.  We start last, but are able to come back to a credible third place (which is later corrected to fourth as the boat behind us has a better handicap).  Races done, it is time to relax and head back to Zeebrugge.

It is still very cold!

Back at the West-Hinder Marina, we pack up our stuff, clean the boat, put everything in order and wait for the announcement of the final results.

Overall, we ended up in second place, same result as last year.  A good result considering.

Two and a half hours to drive home and I get there absolutely exhausted.  I was in bed before 9PM!

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