14/08/2021
Race 7 & 8 St Mawes Sailing Club – Friday 13th August
A WSW F4 which was coming down the course in bands with quite sizable shifts just to complicate matters. Race 7 was a 3 lap windward leeward, and Race 8 was another short Carrick Roads course. I must apologise at this point as all these stories are coming from the view on Polyphemus and we had a bit of an action-packed day, so if I missed something….
Race 7 – As per normal we all lined up for the start from just north of the narrows to a windward mark east of Trefusis, and today it was Polyphemus’ turn to take the Nemesis trophy and push the start line too far, we then had round the pin and restart behind the fleet. Troy, Artemis, Athena and Polly Oliver were leading up the beat, but Polyphemus managed to get to the right side of the course and were actually leading at the first windward mark only to have Athena draw level down the first run and take an inside overlap at the leeward mark and then pull clear up the next beat. Troy was getting the shifts bang on and managed to extend away from Athena, followed by Polly Oliver and Polyphemus for the last run with Artemis a few more boat lengths back. Polyphemus managed to get level with Polly Oliver down the last run but there was an incident on the finish line, Polyphemus crash gybing, nearly wiping the crew out, dropping the kite and having to re-round the finish line, this led to Polly Oliver retiring, Artemis getting through for 3rd place and Polyphemus ending up 4th. Dramatic stuff!
Race 8 – A short Carrick course with a beat to the windward mark, reach to Castle, beat to Pendennis, reach to East Narrows, beat to Governor, reach to West Narrows, gybe to Lugo and down wind to the finish off St Mawes at Bohella.
Athena took the Nemesis trophy for this race and were over the line however unfortunately they did not hear the call from the Race Officer and missed the restart window and had to retire. Once again Troy got a great start and had good speed and, along with Polly Oliver, got clear at the front of the fleet and by all accounts had a great race, although being honest we missed all that…. Just before the windward mark on Polyphemus (on starboard) we nearly got completely wiped out by a gaffer (on port), much heart in mouth stuff, shouting, last minute swerving, rigs touching and maybe a bit of fruity language. Anyway, this must have distracted us a bit, on the spinnaker run we managed to get the spinnaker sheet under the boat and made a mess of sorting the problem out which took the next 2 beats and 2 runs to sort. Somehow, we made it up to 3rd at Governor only to get passed on the downwind leg by Pintail before we eventually sorted the kite, still could have been worse. Redoubtable had a very enjoyable last leg getting through a number of boats on the very final run in from Lugo to the finish line which put a smile on the skipper’s face!
Polly Oliver managed to win the second race
Lighter breeze tomorrow and the series results are close.
Running commentary from Lindsey on Athena!
