Friday 25th June (Bank Holiday Weekend)
Arriving at the Duke of York at 8:30pm, most of the Bear of Britains crew were there, with the remainder arriving on the first red jet Sat morning. I had joined Bear for this race for two reasons. 1. to get some more offshore racing experience even though the miles wouldn’t count towards my Fastnet qualification 2. I’d been overtaken by Bear so many times in the Solent it was too good an opportunity to miss out on sailing one of the most well known racing boats.
Getting down to business before the food arrived, 'Chippie' aka James Gair (probably only to the tax man) produced his laptop with the best estimates of the weather conditions for the next 3 days. NOT GOOD! A low deepening South off Ireland was going to race down the Channel during the weekend with good sailing conditions for the Sat race, but hellish strong winds on the nose (40kn+) for the trip back.
The race course was: start 0850 at Cowes yacht Squadron, head West to the Needles fairway buoy and then South to France passing the Casquets, and the Channel Islands to port to finish at St Quai Potrieux, West of St Malo. This course provided a nominal 160 race miles.
Saturday 26th June
Arriving at the dock we were met by the Racing Academy crew, Tank, Alex, Henry (make like a coffin) and Phil (Minister of the Interior). Having set up the A sail lines and stowed our belongings we headed out through the fairway and got the Mainsail up followed by the Medium Jib. Our plan was to follow the race track until we felt the weather was starting to close in when we’d peel off West towards Dartmouth and head back to Cowes via the Portland race.
Not exactly on the gun but powered up we crossed the start line amongst around 50 other yachts and headed for the needles. Halfway there we lost a halliard up the mast when setting the Asymmetric so Henry was sent up to retrieve it followed not long after by him almost MOBing when during the A2 drop the guy got wrapped round his leg dragging him down the deck. Chippie took the honourable decision and put his camera down to retrieve his crew, but in hindsight it would have made good video!! By this time we had overtaken all the fleet but 'Yani', passed the Fairway buoy and were managing our 3 hour watch system. We were heading much lower than the chasing fleet however round 4:30 pm, we crossed the track of the leading boats at about which time we 
officially retired from the race and headed for the East Channel cardinal. Although the wind conditions hadn’t changed much (we saw around 10-13kn) you could see small clouds building up on the horizon to the West looking like a forest fire. Preparing for the worst we tried a jib peel which involves hoisting the new jib behind the working sail. Unfortunately we failed on two occasions to achieve this, resulting on the second occasion to a tear near the #4 jib bolt rope. We abandoned this technique and relied on bare heading the boat before the new sail was hoisted. Passing the E Channel buoy we then headed for the Channel light vessel as Chippie wanted to reminisce on happy days when becalmed one race he circled it twice whilst drifting in one 12 hour period!
Sunday 27th June
After passing the lightship we then headed North for Lyme bay and at some stage during the small hours whilst I had my head down the on watch crew warmed up the curry and then proceeded to have what seemed like a stag night party. One minute down below was ship shape and in racing fettle the next it looked like Baghdad! At around 3am the breeze had dropped to less than 7kn so with wind off, we put engine on as the tide around Portland Bill was pushing us west by around 2kn. By 5am the call came for the starboard watch to hall out the head sail which to Chippies dismay took 20 mins to hoist. After a debrief as to the differences between being on watch and off watch! we were woken up by Tank drilling us in a series of quick tacks up the Solent as we passed Yarmouth and Lymington. This is where Henry started to perform amazing dissappering acts on the bow, one minute he was on one rail the next he reappeared on the opposite rail without seemingly to have physically moved. Chippie managed to catch this amazing transition on video indicating an interim phase where he paused briefly between tacks to lie in a coffin like trance under the spinnaker pole! I didn’t realise the racing academy had Harry Potter as part of the core syllabus.
By this time it had started to rain so by 9 am we were tied up in Cowes yacht Haven and by 10am had stripped ‘Bear’ of all sails, personal belongings, curry pans and floor boards so the remains of the curry party could be scrubbed away.
After a debrief at 1230 in the Anchor I headed back home deciding not to sty and sail on the Monday as the back pain sustained earlier in the week was beginning not to respond to Max Strength Ibuprofen suggesting further exercise might not be a good thing! 45 boats did finish, Yani taking line and handicap honours in 15.5 hours. Full results at http://www.rorc.org/raceresults07/mythofmalhamrace/rau06.html
Arriving at the Duke of York at 8:30pm, most of the Bear of Britains crew were there, with the remainder arriving on the first red jet Sat morning. I had joined Bear for this race for two reasons. 1. to get some more offshore racing experience even though the miles wouldn’t count towards my Fastnet qualification 2. I’d been overtaken by Bear so many times in the Solent it was too good an opportunity to miss out on sailing one of the most well known racing boats.
Getting down to business before the food arrived, 'Chippie' aka James Gair (probably only to the tax man) produced his laptop with the best estimates of the weather conditions for the next 3 days. NOT GOOD! A low deepening South off Ireland was going to race down the Channel during the weekend with good sailing conditions for the Sat race, but hellish strong winds on the nose (40kn+) for the trip back.
The race course was: start 0850 at Cowes yacht Squadron, head West to the Needles fairway buoy and then South to France passing the Casquets, and the Channel Islands to port to finish at St Quai Potrieux, West of St Malo. This course provided a nominal 160 race miles.
Saturday 26th June
Arriving at the dock we were met by the Racing Academy crew, Tank, Alex, Henry (make like a coffin) and Phil (Minister of the Interior). Having set up the A sail lines and stowed our belongings we headed out through the fairway and got the Mainsail up followed by the Medium Jib. Our plan was to follow the race track until we felt the weather was starting to close in when we’d peel off West towards Dartmouth and head back to Cowes via the Portland race.
Not exactly on the gun but powered up we crossed the start line amongst around 50 other yachts and headed for the needles. Halfway there we lost a halliard up the mast when setting the Asymmetric so Henry was sent up to retrieve it followed not long after by him almost MOBing when during the A2 drop the guy got wrapped round his leg dragging him down the deck. Chippie took the honourable decision and put his camera down to retrieve his crew, but in hindsight it would have made good video!! By this time we had overtaken all the fleet but 'Yani', passed the Fairway buoy and were managing our 3 hour watch system. We were heading much lower than the chasing fleet however round 4:30 pm, we crossed the track of the leading boats at about which time we 
officially retired from the race and headed for the East Channel cardinal. Although the wind conditions hadn’t changed much (we saw around 10-13kn) you could see small clouds building up on the horizon to the West looking like a forest fire. Preparing for the worst we tried a jib peel which involves hoisting the new jib behind the working sail. Unfortunately we failed on two occasions to achieve this, resulting on the second occasion to a tear near the #4 jib bolt rope. We abandoned this technique and relied on bare heading the boat before the new sail was hoisted. Passing the E Channel buoy we then headed for the Channel light vessel as Chippie wanted to reminisce on happy days when becalmed one race he circled it twice whilst drifting in one 12 hour period!Sunday 27th June
After passing the lightship we then headed North for Lyme bay and at some stage during the small hours whilst I had my head down the on watch crew warmed up the curry and then proceeded to have what seemed like a stag night party. One minute down below was ship shape and in racing fettle the next it looked like Baghdad! At around 3am the breeze had dropped to less than 7kn so with wind off, we put engine on as the tide around Portland Bill was pushing us west by around 2kn. By 5am the call came for the starboard watch to hall out the head sail which to Chippies dismay took 20 mins to hoist. After a debrief as to the differences between being on watch and off watch! we were woken up by Tank drilling us in a series of quick tacks up the Solent as we passed Yarmouth and Lymington. This is where Henry started to perform amazing dissappering acts on the bow, one minute he was on one rail the next he reappeared on the opposite rail without seemingly to have physically moved. Chippie managed to catch this amazing transition on video indicating an interim phase where he paused briefly between tacks to lie in a coffin like trance under the spinnaker pole! I didn’t realise the racing academy had Harry Potter as part of the core syllabus.
By this time it had started to rain so by 9 am we were tied up in Cowes yacht Haven and by 10am had stripped ‘Bear’ of all sails, personal belongings, curry pans and floor boards so the remains of the curry party could be scrubbed away.
After a debrief at 1230 in the Anchor I headed back home deciding not to sty and sail on the Monday as the back pain sustained earlier in the week was beginning not to respond to Max Strength Ibuprofen suggesting further exercise might not be a good thing! 45 boats did finish, Yani taking line and handicap honours in 15.5 hours. Full results at http://www.rorc.org/raceresults07/mythofmalhamrace/rau06.html
Guy Shelbourne 29-5-07
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