Cervantes Trophy Race
| Cowes – le Havre 2 May 2009 111 Nm  Weather F4-5 W veering NWW Slight – Moderate Good/Very Good Skipper Watch Leaders Crew Results |
Report We made a safe but low-ranked start, negotiating the 2 knot westgoing current north of Cowes carrying us across the RYS start line. Beating down the western Solent we picked up speed and started working our way up the IRC Class 2 and IRC Class 3 stragglers. We passed our old friend Wild Spirit before Hurst Point. Leaving the Needles Fairway Buoy to port, we soon hoisted a light-weight spinnaker and had a marvellous 70Nm reach, making over eight knots through the water for most of the way. However, our inexperience showed in our failure to make best use of the eastgoing current so that, when the wind veered, we were left with the option of gybing out to the east or making the best of a run. From 20Nm out we were clearly to the west of and losing ground to most of the fleet. With darkness falling, the spinnaker up and some inexperience of pilotage into le Havre, we were perhaps over-cautious. We continued on our sub-optimal run and then dropped the spinnaker 12 miles out. We surprised ourselves at how slickly we managed that! The final drama was at the line where Geoff shouted off Ingenii coming in fast on our port quarter and trying to squeeze in past the committee boat. She missed the line but we met up again about 40 minutes later when she rafted up to Space Race in the harbour. At lunch in the le Havre Yacht Club we agreed that this was a reasonable performance for our first time out, particularly up against professional and owner-enthusiast crews. Onwards and upwards! |