Sail for Charity

8th and Final Day - Retired in Boisterous Conditions

Saturday, 9 August 2008 at 16:38

The final day of Cowes Week 2008 was another of those days when you wouldn't necessarily go out sailing as your first choice of activities. With winds gusting up to 30 knotts and above from mean wind speeds around 25 knotts (F6 gusting F7), the conditions were certainly lively, and the rain mixed in with the spray nicely!!

Once again the course called for a long beat to windward into the fresh conditions, and after a good start only one boat was ahead ... HW Corporate Finance. By the time we had reached the second mark, we were ahead on the course and holding on well. The spinnaker went up and down for a relatively short run down-wind; made short in time by the speed with which we were covering the ground! Then we were back to windward and Amey Loveshack manged to get just one boatlength ahead before we turned to run down wind again.

Unfortunately, as we ran downwind side by side with Amey with the kite up, watching the instruments show gusts over 30 knotts, one of the gusts was just too powerful and we could not hold onto the spinnaker. As the boat broached, a couple of the crew on the rail found themselves up to their waists in sea water and poor old navigator Greg was completely submerged as the water swept him backwards along the deck. True to form, Greg held onto the GPS and surfaced to announce the bearing and distance to the next mark! But by then it was too late, the spinnaker, whilst still intact was flying from the top of the mast like a great big flag - attached only by the haliard. The only way to retrieve it was to send someone up the mast to put a rope around it and pull it back down.

By the time all that was sorted out, the only sensible thing to do was to retire from the race, which we did.

Still, that doesn't affect the overall results, so we finish the Regatta in 2nd Place in the Beneteau 40.7 Class, and with three race wins under our belt. An improvement on last year, and an excellent result overall.

A big thanks to all of the Team Sail for Charity 2008 Crew for their hard work and dedication throughout the whole week, and to all those who have supported our effort by kindly sponsoring us. If you did sponsor your crew member, they certainly earned your sponsorship ... and if you haven't yet sponsored us, there is still time at www.justgiving.com/sailforcharity08.

Day 7 - All over bar the shouting!

Friday, 8 August 2008 at 20:12

After a little bit of excitment to end the week, Friday's result of 3rd place for Healthsure behind Amey Loveshack (1st) and Incognito (2nd) means that the top 3 positions in the regatta overall have now been decided. The bad news is that even if we win Saturday's race, we cannot get below Amey's best 6 score of 8 points, so Amey have won the Beneteau 40.7 Class overall. The good news is that there is no way that any of the boats below us can score less than our current best 6 score of 11 points, so our 2nd place in Class is secure - a great result, particularly as our score includes 3 "bullets" (race wins).

However, earlier in the afternoon, it was not all settled by any stretch, as for the first time this week we were the subject of a Protest, which had the potential to change Friday's result. But the protest was resolved without us recieving a pentaly (or worse a disqualification), and our 3rd place result holds.

Friday's race started well with a long fetch along the North Island shore in gusty conditions. We led the fleet for much of the first leg, but unfortunately, we decided to switch from white sails to a reaching spinnaker to try to strengthen our lead. However, the wind shifted and we could not carry the kite as high as we would have liked, which resulted in us loosing some of our ground to the other boats, eventually rounding the first mark in 3rd place. If luck had been more on our side, we would have rounded the mark to turn downwind with our spinnaker already flying and stormed away from the fleet while other were still changing sails. As it was, a quick change back to white sails was necessary for us to make the mark, and our advantage was lost.

We fought hard to regain the lead, but on a relatively short course there was little advantage for us to catch Amey and Incognito, and the positions over the line didn't change, ending our dream of winning Cowes Week .... for this year ....

Cowes Radio Online

Friday, 8 August 2008 at 08:46

An important day for us today. You can listen to live commentarty on the Regatta on Cowes Radio by listening online at www.cowesradio.co.uk

Day 6: Perfect Sailing Conditions and a Perfect Result

Thursday, 7 August 2008 at 18:40

Thursday saw a bright, sunny day with a steady breeze around 15 knotts from the South West. Perfect sailing conditions, and much better than some of the weather we've had on the previous 5 days. Whether this lifted the crew's spirits, or whether there was a determination within to prove we can do better than yesterday's disappointing position, I don't know. But the outcome was perfect. For the first time this week, not only did we win the race today, but we won it in style, taking line honours as well - no need to work out the handicap ratings today, we were first over the line by a couple of minutes. The course was relatively short in terms of the number of marks to round, but was still demanding.

From the Squadron start line, we had to sail upwind and uptide into the Western Solent. This meant heading for the shallow water near to the "North Island" (or England as some people call it!), and short-tacking up the channel in the shallowest water possible. The mark we had to round was on the South of the channel, so we had to pick our moment carefully to head out of the water into the stronger tides across to the mark. Our naviguessing department got it right, and we came onto the mark perfectly. Up went the big masthead spinnaker for the run downwind back to Cowes, and this time the deep water was the place to be - for the strongest tide which was now running with us. The final challenge was to drop the spinnaker at the downwind mark and head back upwind to Cowes and cross the line, hiking out hard once more.

Ok ... so where does that leave us in the Regatta overall at the end of Day 6. Basically in second place, but it is certainly close! Amey have 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3. We've got 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 7. But now we have to start looking at discards. Discards are a bit complicated, depending on how many races are raced in the Regatta - some years, races get cancelled due to weather conditions, but so far this year that hasn't happened. Assuming we race all 8 races, we will discard our worst two results - so will all the others. If we race 6 or 7 races, then we will discard only 1 result. So if there were no more racing, we would discard our 7 and Amey would discard their 3 - which is why the overall results table shows our Best 5 result.

All to play for tomorrow ...

Day 5 - an interesting day!

Wednesday, 6 August 2008 at 18:17

Today was a confusing day for the naviguessing department. The first challenge was to identify where the Committee Boat start line was actually going to be. It moved at least 3 times, before eventually stopping somewhere West of Portsmouth - in the end, no one's actually sure where exactly we started from! And as to the usual practice of choosing the best end to start, well really we didn't have much chance for that - before we knew it we were into the start sequence and away.

This was all caused by very light winds which shifted around quite considerably in direction, making it very difficult for the race Committee to achieve their goal of a start line that is 90 degrees to the wind direction, aiming towards an upwind first mark. But after several postponments and delays, we eventually got away on a shortened course that gave us a long beat to windward out past Portsmouth, followed by a series of spinnaker runs.

Additional pressure was put on the navigator, by the fact that the usual sequence of starting each Class every 10 minutes was shortened to start each class every 5 minutes - giving our navigator 4 minutes flat to plot the course and get up on deck. Pressure was on!

Its fair to say that we did not do as well as we would have hoped to do today, and its hard to pinpoint exactly what did go wrong. Unfortunately, the shorter course did not give us sufficient time to catch up on some of the other boats, and although we fought hard to the end, 7th was the best we could manage. Skipper did comment that our gybes were very good (changing the spinnaker over from one side of the boat to the other). But I guess it wasn't our day.

Despite all that, we're still in second place in the overall results for the Beneteau 40.7 Class. Lots to do in the next 3 days ...

Day 5 - a light airs day ....

Wednesday, 6 August 2008 at 12:16

A day with little or no wind this morning in the Solent has led to wide spread postponements throughout the racing fleet.  The crew should have started at 1150hrs over at the Browndown mark on the committee line, located towards Portsmouth - with an original course of circa 4 hours and around 23nm.  However with a long postponement this was shortened early afternoon to a race of around 12nm expected to last around 2 hours.  The fleet due to start at 1430 hours now that the winds have picked up a little here; although no where near as wild as the last few days have been .... at least it's not raining today which provides some respite to Peter and the team afloat ... here's hoping it stays that way ....

Day 4 - 2nd place recovered ...

Tuesday, 5 August 2008 at 18:00

Just a quick blog entry for now, as time is short. Will write more later.

After a poor first leg, we rounded the first mark in 11th place, and it didn't look good for the results today. But our skipper Peter Newlands doesn't give up thinking or trying, and after sticking to our game and making sure we made no more mistakes, we had recovered to 5th by the second to last mark.

Some Newlands wizardry at the helm, with maybe a little help from the "Navi-guessers" saw us recover our position over the long last leg from 5th to 2nd - but unfortunately, that was 2nd behind Amey Loveshack, who now equal us on points overall in our Class.