For this, the final weekend of the 2009 Spring series, the mathematicians had worked out that it was possible for us to throw away the chance to win our first ever series in Persephone. This involved a result worse than 6^th and a win from Pavlova.

And OCS would give us a worse result than 6^th when there were 10 S38's coming to the start as there were today. With moderate 10 to 12 knot South Easterlies and sunshine but with a strong eastbound tide taking the fleet over the line at the start, I chose to moderate the advice from my very accurate bowman and adopt a cautious approach to the start. Which is a euphemism for saying we were very late! Last, in fact by several seconds.

Marta on the other hand had a flying pin end start and were off at top speed. We had little air and very quickly were crossed by With Alacrity. We followed for long enough to find a clear lane and just as I saw WA meet the port tack header we tacked into the new lane to be lifted on starboard. Things were looking up immediately as large parts of the fleet had not seen that one. Pavlova, though, definitely had and were off to the left of the course, lifting nicely on the new breeze. The windward mark was Daks and we had been over there before the race to check out the breeze. As with most of the races this season, the shifts were more important than the tide and we were able to play 3 more shifts to pop out behind Marta but ahead of the other S38's and most of the IRC fleet at the windward mark.

A left turn, bear away hoist, Marta with Extra Djinn, Mongoose and Scarlet Jester were perhaps a couple of hundred yards ahead. The next mark was a passing mark after which we soaked down a little and were able to play some of the shifts downwind as well to halve the deficit by the leeward mark.

Another left turn, kiwi (gybe, windward drop) and a short fetch to  a mark whose name I forget.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           By now we had Pavlova on our hip and Marta was now only 4 lengths ahead. The tide was turning and there was some debate as to whether we would make it for the right turn without a tack. Marta tacked, but as she did so we were lifted and shot the mark to gybe set. P3 got it right and bore away so as soon as we were set we gybed to cover. And at the second leeward mark we consolidated a lead, with Marta outside us.

The next beat was all about a loose cover on both boats and by now we were sailing with the Class 3 leaders. All good at the windward mark. As we came down to the next leeward mark though a nav error on my part meant that we were not ready for the drop and our mistake allowed Pavlova to gain the overlap and get through just in front. We'd been 'Babooned!'

Beating up to the next windward mark on the Island shore, Marta was clearly back in contention, storming up on a huge lift from the right side of the beat. Crossing just ahead of them we pulled out in the tacking battle as the wind became more variable to round just 30 seconds or so behind P3.

By now the spring ebb was gathering pace and in the long run across the Solent to the last mark we were unable to reduce their lead significantly, though we sailed a higher angle to get our speed up as much as possible. The drop at the last mark (East Knoll?) was not our tidiest, but the foredeck crew sorted things out (just) in time for the gybe onto close hauled for the drag race to the finish.

Marta found the last rounding tricky too and were seen sailing off to Fawley wrestling with a misbehaving kite, as we beat up against the tide to finish a couple of minutes behind P3.

Marta won the kite battle and then picked her way through the boats who had seized their moment to overtake. I hear reports of nail biting finishes between Marta, Zanzara and WA.

A lovely breeze, sunshine, good racing and a pleasing end to the series for us, we allowed ourselves a cheeky beer with our lunchtime sandwiches, to celebrate.

Next week, we're off to Yarmouth for the Nationals! Bring it on!

Following the training day on the Saturday (well done all you ferrets) we assembled team Persephone a half hour earlier than the usual for this 2 race day.

The wind was northerly and at 8 a.m. a good deal stronger than the forecast.

By 09:30 things had changed and the wind was down to around 9 to 12 knots from the north east.

Race 3 was held first with our class starting 10 minutes after the J105’s. We elected to start in clear air from the middle to pin end of the line. Light were beneath us and going well with Monet above. Pavlova were very fast off the line too and as we started to get dirty air from some of the faster class 3 boats a clear lane emerged for us to take an early tack right and settle into a new clear lane. Crossing behind Pavlova and Monet, we played a few shifts and avoided the traffic in the centre of the course. My bowman thought he saw a port / starboard incident between Pavlova and the rapidly accelerating With Alacrity (sporting the new main, very nice). Closing in on the orange inflatable windward mark we left about 10 lengths on the starboard layline…enough to comfortably set up a pole and get the kite plumbed in, when in the closing stages Zanzara crossed and tacked on us and then With Alacrity came in on port and tacked fractionally below the layline alongside us. She seemed to think about attempting to shoot the mark, backed her jib momentarily and then finding it a tad ambitious, wheeled round to try again.

Monet were away as we set off, hoisting the kite quicker than Zanzara. After a few moments, Pavlova were on our tail and we accelerated behind a J100 to roll Monet. It was at this point that we noticed a certain Mr Budgen on board the Red Transom…welcome back from Oz,  Andy…

The next bit was what my foredeck calls a “kiwi”…poleless for the last couple of lengths, wide in and tight out with the kite coming down on the windward side, we tucked inside Breakout, the big Swan, who came out too wide and inside Scarlet Jester, the SJ320, who gave us room. Tidy!

Beating back just south of the Brambles Post we pulled out some distance on Pavlova and With Alacrity, probably because we had a strong lift out of the mark and clear air all the way. The crew could almost kick the post as we went by, though Extra Djinn ahead actually left it to starboard.

Two more shifts and we were at the mark, and I decided (very late) that we would bear away set and go south, retracing our track to gybe at the post to come in at South Bramble on starboard. Half of the fleet ahead gybe set and went north of the bank first.

We gained handsomely here too, another kiwi and a fetch to the finish, we were amongst boats with TCC’s starting with 1 all around us as we waved to the committee. This looked good.

I noticed a protest flag on With Alacrity after the finish…did she take up the issue with Pavlova on the first leg or was there something else?

Race 5 was a different kettle of fish altogether!

We started well, on the line and going fast. But With Alacrity were going higher and faster off the line. Within a couple of minutes they had climbed above us and  we could take the pain no more and tacked off for clear air. This was going to become a theme in this race. But there were no obvious lanes and we had to duck several of the class 3 boats. Eventually I tired of this and we went left again to avoid the likely starboard layline overstand on the mainland shore. Wrong!! Those to the right all gained and we on the left ended up sailing a good deal further to get up to the mark.

Coming in to the windward mark we had got almost all the shifts wrong and had real work to do to get back in contention. Pavlova were flying and well ahead having stayed right. With them were Zanzara who had sailed a tidy race so far.

We had a mini gybing duel with With Alacrity while Light and Marta stealthily ran down the first run and all of us encroached on Monet. Gallant was sailing steadily too, following the middle group down the run.

The second beat was ok. We stayed out of trouble and caught up with the leaders a little, especially Monet. I cannot remember too much but recall Light rounding before us and With Alacrity there or thereabouts. Marta and Gallant were next to round after us.

Down the run, Light and we had the same idea to stay right in better breeze and we passed Monet quite quickly, who were sailing quite deep.  We needed to get up tide of Norris, gybe onto port and sweep in for the final beat. The entire fleet, plus class 4 converged on Norris and we followed Light round the mark ahead of Monet and With Alacrity. Unfortunately Breakout were there too and they held us out to dry as they failed to round the mark well and head up, being forced to reach off with us underneath them as they sorted out a kite malfunction.

With Alacrity and Monet took the opportunity and slipped through and to windward, followed by Marta. We had to get clear air and recover.

As soon as we had done so, Team Persephone were then repeatedly sat on, first by Marta and then With Alacrity, in the shifty conditions. WA successfully team raced us off the course to let Marta, Monet and Gallant through to take 2^nd, 4^th and 5^th in the Sigmas. We had to settle for a disappointing 7^th.  

Hey Ho!

The mystery was what happened to Zanzara. Second at the last mark they lost out badly on the last leg. I look forward to reading that story….

This was really close one design racing and a number of teams were showing great improvements after the intensive training on Saturday. With 2 weeks before the Nationals, the class racing is hotting up nicely.

April 5^th, the end of a tax year and a lovely day for a sail! As the fleet gathered around the committee at Universal Marina buoy, it seemed like another drifting day with less than 4 knots from the east. After a half hour postponement the breeze was filling in and we set off for our pre start warm up routine.

Karen was away this weekend and I had the unfamiliar task of loading up the course data into the Navigation systems as the crew tuned up the sails and set car positions etc.

With 7 minutes to go to the start, I re emerged on deck to take the helm and we opted for a committee boat start. Slightly early, we had to stop a couple of lengths from the line and then power up for the start itself. Light were to leeward of us and moving faster as the gun went. Scarlet Jester were above us but the start was clean with no lack of air.

Pretty soon our course towards the windward mark took us past the first leeward mark for IRC1 and Light were compromised by the larger boats dirty air as they joined in the windward chase.

At the first mark we were comfortably ahead of Light with Marta in the chase as well. We had tacked to the right a little too early and the boats which went left seemed to gain. Pavlova had gone right a good deal sooner and were caught out by the last hour or so of the ebb tide streaming to the south of the Ryde bank.

Bearing away onto a tight reach made tighter by the weather bow of the tide, we failed to protect our wind well enough and were rolled by another class 3 boat and Light as we dived down for the hoist at North Ryde Middle. But we blanketed Light and were able to sweep past them again. 2 gybes and in, we were able to cover Light up the second beat but  things were still pretty close.

The next leg was a long run down to Britannia Events in Southampton Water, with the tide now much less powerful. The front runners in the IRC3 fleet gybed early and went a long way west. We went with them for a while but then split gybes with the leaders  to cover Light, who had stood on and seemed to be sailing a shorter course to the leeward mark.

And so it proved as they had slipped past us to round a length or so ahead. Who would hold the kite the longest and which of us would drop more efficiently?

Our windward float drop went better and we were able to sail around the outside of Light, who then tacked for air. We covered. They tacked again to break cover on this, the final beat. We covered, but the port genoa sheet would not release! Drama, or crisis? The spinnaker sheet had been dragged through the turning block and the jam would not budge. So we tacked back onto starboard and cut the bowline, attached a new sheet and had another go at tacking onto the port making tack. 

A great effort by the trimmers allowed us to keep pace with Light and we were able (just) to cover them for the final tack to the finish.

A great close race with the lead changing a number of times and a fabulous sail!

Well done too to Marta who was showing her class finishing a splendid 3^rd in the Sigma fleet and really getting her boatspeed together in the 10 to 12 knots of wind available by the end of the race.

The first race of the season brought Persephone her first Sigma win!

Report:

After the winter refit and emerging from the Osmotech shed on Wednesday, launching on Thursday and 2 very full days re-rigging the boat, we were rewarded by the prospect of a beautiful day’s sailing on Sunday.

The wind was in the north to north west quadrant about 8 knots but with gusts of 80% and so we set up for generally light conditions. Pre start was lots of gybing practise and a couple of test beats to optimise the car positions and we were ready.

For the first beat we had tide under us and we decided that the tidal considerations were too significant to ignore, so we went for the pin end (ish) to the left of the fleet to get deeper water. There was a port bias but we ignored that preferring the deep stuff with only Marta beneath us, until she and all the boats on the right had tacked off.

Coming in on port, the strategy seemed to have paid off as we tucked in behind With Alacrity at the windward mark. She was away as the fleet blanketed us  and Light and Pavlova caught up markedly. Zanzara were in there too, sailing a deeper course to a laid gybe mark near the pin end of the line.

Light got the overlap on us as we gybed, but we were able to climb above her for clearer air. She gybed off to go further south and we gybed on all the shifts as we sailed the second leg of the first downhill stage. We shook off Pavlova and sailed a shorter distance than Light or With Alacrity to round the leeward mark second in the Sigma 38 fleet.

On the long beat that followed the shifts were the more important factor than the tide for us. We tacked on several good shifts and pulled back With Alacrity’s Lead to round the windward mark perhaps 40 seconds ahead of them. The next leg was a shy-ish kite reach along the Stokes Bay shore with what little breeze prevailed blanketed by Fay- J with a huge asymmetric. With Alacrity were rushing up behind us on new breeze and I nervously looked round from time to time to see our lead on them diminishing by the second. But we held on, splitting tacks with them for the equally fickle short beat back to Fastnet Insurance and the dead run to East Bramble.

The boys on the front of Persephone spiked a very late drop to squeeze the last bit out of the kite and we sailed a defensive half mile beat to the finish.

We were pleased to have caught up with and passed Scarlet Jester and Extra Djinn of IRC3 on the water.