A game of Buckaroo...

Have you ever played the child's game, Buckaroo? If so, you will have experienced tension, excitement and sheer disappointment while loading up the mule until he bucks.

The start 

Sailing the Mini is just like this game; the items to be stacked are similar (beanie vs. cowboy hat, bedroll vs camping mat, lantern vs torch, frying pan vs jet boil, shovel vs paddle, stick of dynamite vs flares, rope and water bottles), and the emotional and physical turmoil are the same. Stacking items correctly in the Mini is essential to good trim and balance of the boat; get it wrong, and she'll buck, leaving you out of control. During the windy conditions of the Fastnet race we found ourselves splitting the 'stack' before tacking. This meant going down inside the boat to lug heavy items off the shelves onto the floor, so that we could turn the boat through the wind (completing a 'tack') , and then chuck everything back up onto the new windward side. It is a tiring process and at times dangerous- one skipper during this race dislocated his knee while stacking, as the boat hit a wave throwing him forward around the mast.

But it is not just this process that is akin to a game of Buckaroo- simply sailing upwind in 20 knots requires you to hang on with two hands, as a loss of concentration can leave you slamming down a wave with your backside going skywards, as the boat bucks in annoyance at your lack of care. During the Fastnet we had a beat to the Eddystone Lighthouse and up around Land's End, but both of us managed to stay onboard- and even boil up some Chilli con carne without being seasick! So for 12 hours of the race we were winning the game of Buckaroo- with a 3rd place during the inport race, until we ripped our spinnaker -leaving us sweating like crazy and thirsty for a top fleet position.  

The broken tiller - carbon splinters! 

Unfortunately 20 + knots had required us to reef the main, a process which leaves ropes flapping around off the back of the boom, until you have the mainsail pulled up taut again. It was during one of these reefing manouveres that some rope caught around our starboard tiller (a stick of carbon that we use to steer the boat), yanking it upwards and weakening the fibres. It was not however until 11.30 pm that we realized what damage had been caused- having tacked, we grabbed onto the new tiller, only to find it in two pieces!

Some stuff to 'stack'

So at midnight on Monday it was game over- year's of bucking had weakened the tiller to breaking point. The prospect of heading out into open sea with 30 knots and a lack of control over the steering mechanism was not an attractive one. We turned around just off the Lizard (perhaps stopping in Cornwall for a pasty would have been a better idea?), and headed back to Plymouth, arriving in the early hours for a grateful tow from Keith, the race organizer (who later made us a cooked breakfast; thanks Keith!).

Having spent weeks and weeks preparing for the race- right from logistics to picking what food we would take- I was feeling gloomy for a good few hours after getting in to Plymouth. It is always difficult to decide whether to quit something or not, and I can understand how Becky felt last year, having to pull out of the Azores race with autopilot failure- after what was effectively two years of preparation.

wet and windy

But it seems the UK Mini Fastnet has turned out to be a tough one for the entire fleet. At the time of writing, the first boat is 10nm from Fastnet Rock (The Proto TY Startigenn), with Pip Hare in second place and first series boat. There are six boats left in the race; three boats are sitting in Ireland, including Jake Jefferies who has suffered hull damage and officially retired. Another lies in Penzance, while the rest of the fleet have returned to Plymouth; one with keel problems, and the others to simply preserve the boats for the Mini Transat race in October. It takes a lot to keep these boats and the skippers going- although small, they are technically and physically demanding, with the prototypes being somewhat akin to the IMOCA 60s in terms of design.

The GPS, telling us which way to go...

Tomorrow Nikki and I will return the boat home to Cowes, with just over two weeks until the move to Douarnenez, where we hope Nikki will get a space for the solo MAP race, and we will give a second shot at the Fastnet course- this time 660 miles, starting and finishing in France!

You can track the rest of the race here: http://yb.tl/minifastnet2013
and watch some video from the race here: http://lizzyracing.wix.com/lizzyracing#!video/cupv

Wishing all the best to the remaining competitors in the UK Mini Fastnet, and to Yannick Le Cleach, who hopes to recover his Mini from Bovisand Bay tomorrow (you can follow his story here: http://yannickleclech.blogs.letelegramme.com/archive/2013/05/14/attente.html)