Amazon Sailing - GBR 9452R
Another sunny day with 10 knots from the north east and an excellent course up the Roach and out to Buxey 2 with a small loop to the Raysand buoy and back. Yet again we were head to head with Hullabaloo sailing at exactly the same speed as her to windward for most of the time and eventually rounding the windward mark about two minutes ahead before the long run home. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough, so yet another second.
Another beautiful day with a light east to northeasterly, but this time with a beat all the way from the start to Musto and back and fair tide both ways. How we were not over the line at the start I don’t know, as we were to windward of Wambam who tried to push us over, but there was no recall and we crossed tacks with Hullabaloo and Scaramouche all the way and then kept changing places with Scaramouche on the run. We only just beat Wambam by 17 seconds and Hullabaloo won yet again.
Results for the weekend – second in class on countback to Harvest Moon winning the runners- up trophy and also the two cups for both of the Sunday races.
What a difference a day makes, the wind switched off and we had three new lovely ladies onboard. Light airs and north easterly. We started in about 6 knots and the wind slowly died and went into the northeast making it a fair tide beat going foul and we left the others in the class by about half a mile. Unfortunately my local knowledge was not good enough and we found the bottom for about five minutes, so Hullabaloo overtook us. Once we were round the windward mark we spinnakered back towards Burnham with the tide, but the sea breeze didn’t quite go that far, so we parked up in the convergence zone and we beat to the finish which was shortened at Holiwell. A second today – will do better tomorrow.
A little less wind today, mainly 20 to 25 knots with some 30 knot gusts from the north, giving a two sail reach all the way to Buxey 2. Harvest Moon got a tow on our wake most of the way down the river and eventually we shook them off. There were two triangles with two spinnaker legs and again we were the only boat in the class to fly a spinnaker, but still couldn’t save our time on HM, but were second, so for the weekend we had equal points with HM winning on countback. Tomorrow we start the mid week series with new competition!
30 knots and sunshine sounds just like the Caribbean, but this was much colder. Full oilskins were the order of the day and ‘he who dares wins’. With a down wind spinnaker start to the inner crouch buoy and then two loops with a long beat back to pilehouse we were the only boat to fly a spinnaker on both runs. After a short break we were off on another start this time upwind from the CYC line to Shortpole reach and back. Again we were the only boat to spinnaker nearly all the way back in a solid 30 knots, passing Double Trouble who had lost their rig at Creeksea. So two races and two wins, the second one by only one second – so the spinnaker was worth it – what a day!
We raced in the Houghton Cup a 54 mile EAORA race with a northwest to westerly wind gusting up to 20 knots. We led the class off the start line and just kept ahead of them all the way round the course to the finish, so as the lowest rated boat we won the class, but overall when the tide turned against us from the Roach, we had no chance and were 7th.
I sailed Amazon from the Medway to Ramsgate on Thursday in time for two days of SailEast racing which was part of the IRC three day regatta of Ramsgate week with about 35 entries. Because of the 12 half tonners in Class 3 we were moved up to class 2 along with our friends and rivals on Antix.
The wind was pretty much the same for both days with south to southwest 17 to 22 knots and mainly foul tide beats which favoured the bigger boats as we did a lot of slamming into the very short chop. We got two thirds and two fourths in class 2, I’m not sure what that equates to in our normal class 3 and were well beaten by Antix yet again. But as a result we are now class 3 champions for SailEast 2010!
We decided not to race with only four crew and a forecast of 25 to 30 knots, but in hindsight we should have as the wind was only 20 knots and more importantly no rain. With no discards we still scored second in class and eleventh overall for the weekend. Next weekend it’s SailEast at Ramsgate
A very light day afloat with very varied results! Our results were a first and a second in class, so everything to play for tomorrow and a second overall followed by a second to last, so both extremes. Tomorrow looks rather windy!
