Behind the Fleet - Deceptive Forecast, Tough Conditions

Saturday saw this year’s Club-1 group out on the water for the first time. Having completed their Learn to Sail course only a few weeks earlier, the promise of good conditions for beginners brought a number of them down to the club for their first race. The conditions though ultimately proved challenging. Despite the benign weather forecast of 15 to 20 knot winds and seas of 0.5 to 1 metre, conditions out there on Saturday were tough. The wind was quite variable and the swell seemed a lot higher than the predicted 1 metre. That made for some challenging sailing and unfortunately a few capsizes amongst the Club-1 group.

This week it was Ken’s turn to skipper "Serenity". Having been drawn into helping a whole bunch of Club-1 members and Sabre owners launch their boats, we found ourselves being the last boat to leave the club. Long last. All the other boats had managed to cross the channel ahead of a ship that was coming out of the Yarra. But unfortunately due to our late departure we were caught and had to wait while it passed. As we were waiting we were looking at our watch wondering whether we were going to make it to the start line in time.

After the ship had passed we made out way as quickly as possible to the start area and arrived with five minutes to spare, around the time that division one was making their attack on the line. Inadvertently we found ourselves cutting across the first division fleet as they were making their final run to the line. That created a few dicey moments for all concerned as we negotiated our way through some pretty aggressive sailing.

On board "Serenity" things weren’t quite gelling and while we waited for our start we managed to put in some pretty ordinary tacks. That was a sign of things to come for us. We decided to position ourselves "head to wind" below the start line and wait for the one-minute warning. However, when the start horn sounded we were caught flat footed, going nowhere and still a significant distance from the line. While we tried to get "Serenity" moving the remainder of the fleet was off and running. By the time we’d limped across the start line we were well behind the fleet.

Putting our missed start behind us we got ourselves together and made our way upwind. Gary sailing in "Manta" must have had a really bad start because we were really surprised to see him behind us. And so it was that the two crews embarked on our own little match race - "Serenity" and "Manta" battling it out for the wooden spoon.

By our own admission our beat upwind was pretty ordinary as we struggled to cope with the conditions and some less-than-ideal tacking. But we managed to maintain our lead against "Manta" so heading around the top mark we were pretty happy.

On the reach we found ourselves running neck-and-neck with Valberg in “Carbon Offset” (a unique class of boat known as a Red Jacket). The reach was pretty lively and some of the Sabres were going so fast that they were planing on the water. Half way along this leg “Serenity” was going fast enough to get up onto the plane too. As soon as she did we raced ahead of “Carbon Offset” and by the time we’d reached the second mark we’d made considerable headway.

Although we’d rigged the spinnaker (we're not making that mistake again) there was no way we were going to use it on the downwind leg - the wind was just too strong. Amongst those sailors who were either capable or courageous there were a few spinnakers flying and when executed correctly it helped them to gain considerable advantage. In Brian’s case though, an out-of-control spinnaker with considerable pulling power resulted in an unfortunate capsize. Ken and I took our more conservative approach keeping "Serenity's" spinnaker securely stowed away in its pouch.

As it was, the conditions on downwind were a little dicey. Although the wind was directly behind us, the swell was coming from our rear quarter and threatening to push us into an involuntary gybe. Although Ken was now sufficiently experienced to cope with these conditions, I couldn’t help thinking how tricky it was going to be for the Club-1 sailors. They would be unaware that for them the chances of a capsize on this leg were going to be pretty high.

We rounded the bottom mark without incident. However, with a TS16 inconveniently on our inside we found ourselves somewhat constrained from tacking. As we approached the wall of Webb Dock we started running out of room so we decided to tack – not so much a surprise for us but certainly a surprise to those on the TS16! They skilfully executed an evasive tack while we struggled with what to do about avoiding a collision. I’m not quite sure how we managed it but when the excitement had passed we found ourselves once again on the windward side of the TS16 running a parallel course upwind with "Manta" hot on our stern. Like a moth to a flame we felt ourselves being drawn toward the TS16 and we were desparately trying to find a way that we could maintain our position without collision or infringing any right-of-way rules. Through some trial and error with sail positions we eventually found that we could point “Serenity” higher than the TS16 could manage and we started to draw away from them. We couldn’t shake “Manta” though with Gary still in hot pursuit.

Despite the fact that we’d only completed one lap we were both starting to feel tired and we briefly discussed returning to the club. But with Gary still behind us we were enjoying our sailing, pitting our skills against his. By the time we’d reached the top mark though our rival was nowhere to be seen. Looking out across the channel we could see the blue hull of "Manta" heading back to the club.

With our competition gone we reassessed our commitment to the race but decided to keep going. Around the top mark we commenced our second reach leg. By this stage though tiredness was really setting in and without a rival to spur us on we decided to call it a day. We returned to the club and made it an early afternoon. A pleasurable afternoon's sailing, albeit in challenging conditions.