Weymouth
Following on from the Easter Challenge, the time had come for the Weymouth Double-handed race to Weymouth. After fighting through the Friday afternoon traffic wishing I’d left earlier, I eventually made it to the boat to help Jerry get the sails and kit onboard. With light winds forecast, we had to set off nice and early from the dock to make sure we got to the start line on time!
We continued to try and beat the clock throughout the evening, with a SW breeze maxing at 8 knots we needed to get out of the Solent before the tide turned around 10.30 PM. As the sun set it became quite difficult to know where we were in the fleet, particularly when we could no longer see the bright pink Figaro, ‘Rare’, the easiest boat to spot. We managed to get out of the Solent before the breeze shut down completely, avoiding kedging by catching the new breeze from the NNE. Now moving in the right direction, a celebratory cup of tea was in order whilst other boats recovered from being swept backwards. By around 1pm we got the kite up, and later on in the evening were overtaken to windward by the Class 40. They were stuck on our hip all through the night, while another J105, Slingshot, appeared behind us once the sun came up again.
Hearing over the radio that the first boat had finished at 05:53 (the pink Figaro), we still had a while to go, making our way to the finish line with the Class40 and J105 for company. After 11 ½ hours, we finished in 5th place, sharing a Heineken (not my usual choice for breakfast) before going to bed for the morning.
With Weymouth being a frequent holiday destination of mine, I enjoyed pottering around the town in the afternoon, getting a good coffee and finding a gift for Mum’s birthday. Once everyone else had woken up, it was good to catch up with the other sailors and hear their tales over a hearty dinner of toad-in-the-hole at the Weymouth Sailing Club.
The next morning everyone was off on leg 2, with the first start at 9 AM. This time the breeze was 15-20 knots from the North. With a nice reach out, we got going at 9 knots. I was seriously over-heating, having put on a lot of extra kit at Jerry’s sound advice; unfortunately the extra layers did make it impossible to get my smock on and off in any reasonable amount of time!
We stayed quite tight inshore to try and get out of the strong tide, getting a great view of the Jurassic coast. The breeze built at St Alban’s with quite a bit of swell into Christchurch Bay, making it a challenge to stay on the rail. With the fleet splitting between the Needles and the North Channel we made some losses, but still had an exciting time coming into the Western Solent for the last 10 miles to the finish where we had force 6 apparent winds. With that breeze, it only took 6 ½ hours for the trip home!