An energetic trip round the harbour
Playing catch up with the sailing blogs. This one relates to the Saturday Middle Harbour pointscore racing a few weeks ago.
Its absolutely bucketing down the wind driving it to the horizontal on the drive to the dock. On the boat the rain eases but still the crew put on the wet weather gear. We are down to 4 crew from our usual 6.
Heading across to Middle Harbour the rain stops and it doesn't seem so windy. The talk lightens up. Then we close in to Middle Head and the swell coming through the heads is significant, Ferries are disappearing between them. The wind is on the up and any thoughts of the race being a lovely twirl around the harbour are put to rest. One reef in and less than half the jib. The thoughts are to win first you have to finish.
We bunkered down chose our lines well, especially Tracey and Chris's suggestion to head in toward Middle Head to get across the heads. It was a lot less lumpy. But it was tough, a quick look around saw ferries rolling and rocking between swells.
To gybe or not to gybe was the question, not to gybe was the decision. Granny tacking at all gybe marks. The boat was balanced and we felt we were doing well and the joy of sailing well in hard conditions settled on the crew.
The last crossing of the heads saw the fleet hit by a prolonged squall of hard rain and apparent winds close to 40 knots. Panacea handled it well no rounding up, just putting her shoulder down and getting on with it.
It seemed a long slog but as the gun went off for a first over the line it was wide grins and back slapping all round. The victory became sweeter when we discovered Panacea was the only boat in our division to finish.
I think it was the most satisfying sail I've had. Liam couldn't wipe the smile off his face and why not he handled it all really well. He and Tracey really had the bulk of work to do during tacks.
The beer was very sweet indeed.
Its absolutely bucketing down the wind driving it to the horizontal on the drive to the dock. On the boat the rain eases but still the crew put on the wet weather gear. We are down to 4 crew from our usual 6.
Heading across to Middle Harbour the rain stops and it doesn't seem so windy. The talk lightens up. Then we close in to Middle Head and the swell coming through the heads is significant, Ferries are disappearing between them. The wind is on the up and any thoughts of the race being a lovely twirl around the harbour are put to rest. One reef in and less than half the jib. The thoughts are to win first you have to finish.
We bunkered down chose our lines well, especially Tracey and Chris's suggestion to head in toward Middle Head to get across the heads. It was a lot less lumpy. But it was tough, a quick look around saw ferries rolling and rocking between swells.
To gybe or not to gybe was the question, not to gybe was the decision. Granny tacking at all gybe marks. The boat was balanced and we felt we were doing well and the joy of sailing well in hard conditions settled on the crew.
The last crossing of the heads saw the fleet hit by a prolonged squall of hard rain and apparent winds close to 40 knots. Panacea handled it well no rounding up, just putting her shoulder down and getting on with it.
It seemed a long slog but as the gun went off for a first over the line it was wide grins and back slapping all round. The victory became sweeter when we discovered Panacea was the only boat in our division to finish.
I think it was the most satisfying sail I've had. Liam couldn't wipe the smile off his face and why not he handled it all really well. He and Tracey really had the bulk of work to do during tacks.
The beer was very sweet indeed.
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