after the prev few sails of not doing very well i decided to do changes to the boat the first being slacken off the battens then the mast forestay and see how it goes. when i arrived at swanage bright and early i was greeted with a nice fresh easterly. i got the boat ready and altered the battens to loose.
tightened the toestraps. i wasn't looking forward to this race at all as the wind was supposed to be 14 knts + on an easterly, out of the bay i was expecting some chop.
John Russ agreed to crew for his annual sail to Bournemouth, we launched with about 15 mins to go and had everything on board, radio , gps and phone just incase.
a quick test on the wire and john was happy. we got to the line no propbelm but were burried with lots of other boats. mark Dooley and mike cemm made good starts and we were just behind them.
we had to keep tacking out on port to clear the cliffs of ballard and better wind was found on this tack, we found ourselves eventually toward old harry in 5th spot and after rounding Poole bar buoy we were in 4th spot overhauled mike cemm and also pulled away from richard. at one time we were 150 yds or so behind perham and MD the canoe was going realy well. with occasionally bursts of speed we found ourselves close to Bournemouth and spotted our yellow bouy, we round 3rd cat 4th overall and nothing in sight behind us. however i round the boat to fast and we didn't make the tack drifted and hit the mark, i sailed off and tried to do a 360 but this failed and then said ok lets round the mark then do the 360 later. we did that and got overtaken by Steve little john. we soon passed him again and it wasn't until before the bar buoy he overtook us. Richard was fast catching and stray cat
over old harry the race was building and we hit a few lumps good and proper, it was all good fun as we were motivated that we were doing well. we came out the other side ok only to find Richard snapping at our stern, we pulled away and by the time we got into the bay he was back and about to overtake, the wind picked up and we started burying the bow in the gusts and fighting every ounce of speed out of the boat we didn't want to be overtaken !! we headed straight for the old pier where the line was, we didn't know what to look for and Richard slid behind us at great speed , had we finished ??, we got in and i asked john to go find out, we had finished correctly however Richard had just pipped us.
all in all the best race i had done on a dart 18 i beat Greg as well who has been sailing far better than me all year. this race had been dragged out of the bag somehow and if it wasn't for the mistake we would have been 3rd car home and not 5th
well done john for your tactics once again. i did try to film it but the head cam kept switching off, hopefully the track will come out when the gps decides it wants too !!
finish time 2h 3m , faster two prev trips on mutley192, fastest trip on a dart18 2nd fastest trip overall. fastest trip 1h48m on mutley192
