Archived Race Reports 2006

Community Chest Twilight Series Final Results

We clinched the Community Chest Twilight Series with a 3,3,4, scoreline.

Statistics often hide a multitude of sins. To prove this point, the above series consisted of 8 races of which we only completed 3. Four of the races were cancelled due to excessive or too little wind, and of the 4 races that counted, we also had one DNF result where we found a hole big enough to store all this cities vehicles. So........whilst we scored no bullets, we were consistent enough to beat the Mumm 36 "Ballyhoo Too" into 2nd place, albeit by a slender 2 points.

Series wins nearly always come from just entering, being on time and doing the basics right.

Community Chest 2006 Overall Results Spinnaker
Sail No Yacht Owner/skipper Class Pts PLC

1st SA204 Smack Water Jack Trygve Roberts J27 102 1
2nd RSA3600 Bally Hoo Too Iain Park-Ross Mumm 36 104 2
3rd Nam 10 Alladin H Geiger Farr 40 111 3
4th SA4444 N.Mace Fast 40 117 4
5th SA 18881 Hi Fidelity Eddie de Villiers Welbourn 46 119 5
6th 010 Lapwing J Burger/A Keen L34 121 6
7th SA42424 Tenacity Errol Stern Fast 42 121 7
8th SA082 UkuZwana T Swana Laser 28 modk 123 8
9th SA 630 AL Johan van Rooyen Farr 38 123 9
10th SA 3141 Always Well Burger/Thomas First 7.5 125 10
11th SA 190 Pure Magic Alan Taylor J 27 137 11
12th SA2127 Monkeys in the Mist B Diebold Jaz 30 138 12
13th 0001 Unmatched Pacer 27s 144 13
14th SA 198 Hill Billy Peter Hill J27 144 14
15th SA 1105 Hocus Pocus Errol Stern Farr 38 145 15
16th 44 Hors D'Oeuvre P Bam L26 146 16
17th SA 3800 Unleased Leisure 42r 146 17
18th 42 Wild Goose Ernest Chicken L26 146 18
19th 5 Sensation AR Munnik L34 147 19
20th SA 339 Halali Erik Lehmann Impact mod 148 20
21st GBR 29r Prodigy Chris Frost 152 21
22nd SA 3444 Maestro (Harken) Roux/van Ass Fast 42 153 22

13th December, 2006
Twilight Series Fun Race

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Clear, Wind Fresh South West.
Temp 25C

Weather Actual: Clear, Wind SE/SW 0-5 knots
Baro: 1003 hPa

Course: Start No:10 (P) – No.4 (S) - No.8 (S) – Milnerton (S) – No. 4 (P) – No.10 (P)

Seas: Fairly flat with small chop 0.5m

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, .5oz Quantum BP floater

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Charles Crosby (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow) Total: 527 kg

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): RTD

Entries Spinnaker Class: 15
Total Entries: 56

Ave Speed: 3.5 kts

Max Speed: 8.5 kts

Distance: 5.78 nm.

Time: 01:38.23

The breeze had been light all day – uncharacteristic in Cape Town for this time of year, to put it mildly! We were out early and made sure we hung around close to the pin end of the line. The breeze was about 2 knots to zero and coming from both SE and SW in a 10 second time frame – very frustrating and confusing. Along the line there were boats, both on starboard tack, mere meters apart, yet on a collision course.

With a bevy of hot-shots in the form of Rick Nankin and Parky in the Pacer 27 and Mumm 36 respectively, on our weather quarter, we pulled off yet another excellent start, sneaking over the line ahead of both the faster boats, who immediately hoisted their assymetrics. As soon as they were drawing, we luffed up ever so gently and collapsed both kites and got away cleanly. The wind changed from a beam reach to dead ahead and soon we were puff hunting trying to coax the boat over 3 knots. We did well to be the first Class 2 boat to round No.4 mark.

We resisted putting up the kite and waited till we were past No.8 before putting our spinnaker up, but the breeze was dying. First the Pacer sailed through us to weather, then Sensation tried, but failed and then everybody parked as we all sat in the calm zone between the two breezes. The question was, which breeze would be the stronger? Considering the forecast had been for a “fresh” south wester, I put my money on that direction and boldly steered to the left side of the course.

Ukuzwana (Laser 28) came from far behind, seemingly in its own breeze and sailed right over us, but soon they too, came to a dead stop, allowing us to catch up and overtake them. And so it went with the two boats swapping the lead several times. On the left side, the three leading boats were Gumption, Ukuzwana and ourselves, whilst most of the other boats had chosen the right hand side option.

After a frustratingly slow hour with the “spinnaker up, genoa down, genoa up, spinnaker down” sequence being repeated many times, the boats on the right finally got the breeze and powered through to Milnerton. Looking at our GPS track this morning, seems like we were stoned out of our heads with the weirdest track log imaginable. The joys of light wind sailing!

We rounded Milnerton in about 7th place and made good speed back towards No.4 doing a steady 6,7 knots, but it wouldn’t last long. We caught back up to the Pacer, and the Laser caught back up to us. It was already past 1900 with the light fading fast and I knew we would be out on the water for a long time, so after a brief and unanimous crew caucus, we started up the donkey and called the bridge announcing our retirement and headed straight for the cold beer.

We passed a struggling L26 with no motor, near the breakwater to find half a Smackwater Jack team on board in the form of Rodney, Pinky and Craig Tarr. We offered them a tow back to the club which was accepted with much light hearted banter going on between the two boats. I now know that a 5 hp Yamaha outboard really struggles to propel two 1.5 ton boats. The best we could mange in flat water/no wind was 4.2 knots.

At the dock, Richard Gie from Garmin, came to introduce himself. Smackwater Jack is one of four boats selected for an experimental programme during Table Bay Week, where the selected boats will be fitted with transponders. A big screen will be erected at the club and the four boats progress during races may be tracked and watched by spectators on shore. I am not sure of all the details at this stage, but it might also be put up live on the Garmin website. The 3 kg unit is being fitted to SWJack on Friday morning. I hope to have more information to direct anyone interested in this later in the week.

Ironically, about a year ago I was trying to patent this very concept in conjunction with my rather bright son in law, Bruce Keen. The potential is enormous and when one thinks about it, the track logs of each boat can be retraced relevant to any other boat, making it possible for race organizers to resolve protest situations, finishing positions, premature starters, correct mark roundings, safely track longer offshore races and the bonus of entertaining spectators locally on a big screen and millions globally via the web.

This is not new technology of course, it has been done before and the recent Volvo Race was a good example. The problem in the Volvo example was that the transponder signal was slow – around once every 15 minutes. My thoughts were to operate on a one second signal relay to provide highly accurate data. Such GPS performance would be better suited to club/round the cans racing as well as dinghy racing.

I firmly believe that this is how racing will be monitored and controlled in the very near future. It is also a huge safety advantage to boat owners, crews and their families onshore to know at all times, precisely where the vessel is. (No more ducking in to Clifton or Quay 4 whilst you tell the missus you are at work!)

Anyway – It looks like Garmin beat me to it.

RCYC looked great last night. Maestro’s have finally left, the big pub is open again and the vibe was excellent. Nic Mace singled Phillip and Greg out and made a visible effort to thank them for joining the club and made them feel welcome. Quite an about turn in attitude and very nice to observe.

So two days to go and we commence with our third Table Bay Week Regatta. I can’t say that I am happy with our performance in the first two and hopefully we have all learned something about big events and how different they are to the more casual Wednesday night sailing.

This year we have formidable opposition in Class 2. A quick look at how to deal with the competition:

Pacer 27 “Unmatched” skippered by Rick Nankin – a multiple national champion, sailmaker and crewed by a boat full of rock stars. They are all on a new boat with a new team and have a high IRC rating to contend with. If it blows 25 knots, they could sail away from the fleet unhindered – especially on the downwind legs where they reach 20 knots without too much effort.

Beneteau 7.5 “Always Well” skippered by Ralph Thomas and Lance Burger and also boasting a good crew. With a similar performance to the Pacer, this boat also flies downwind in breeze over 15 knots.

L34 – “Lapwing” skippered by lady helm Robyn Keen and with the razor sharp Alan Keen calling tactics and trimming, this boat is quite capable of finishing 1st if the breeze is strong.

L34 “Sensation” skippered by the young Gerrie Hegie and a group of youngsters. Perhaps a bit light on experience, but on a very quick boat and one that has won this event in the past.

J27 “Pure Magic” skippered by Alan Taylor who has assembled a highly experienced group of family and friends for this event. His boat is 100 kg lighter than SWJack and has proven to be very quick in the lighter breezes.

Laser 28 “Ukuzwana” skippered by Thomas Swana and with a regular Lipton Cup crew on board including J27 sailor Peter Hill, this is the boat presenting the biggest threat. Thomas has had his boat re-rated with a non-overlapping headsail and reduced his already favourable rating by an even greater margin. This boat was also won this event in the past.

Farr 38 “Hocus Pocus” skippered by Errol Stern. You might be right to be raising an eyebrow wondering what a Farr 38 is doing in Class 2. I did the same! Apparently they have done some “IRC optimizing” much like the Laser 28 and had their boat rated with a No.3 jib for this regatta and they have succeeded in coming in below 0.999 IRC. Now imagine for a moment a J27 rated at 0.938 competing against a Farr 38.

Our forecast as at todays date looks like its going to be a strong wind regatta. The J27's would have stood a much better chance in the light to moderate wind ranges, but lets hope the weather guys have things wrong. Whatever happens, we will give it our best shot.

Sail # Class Yacht Skipper Club TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place
010 L 34 Lapwing Robyn Keen 1.015 19 28 9 1 38 9 1 39 37 1
SA 1105 Farr 38 (No 3) Hocus Pocus
Errol Stern 1.065 19 27 37 1 37 37 1 43 58 2
SA 2127 Jaz 30 Monkeys in the Mist
Bernard Diebold 1.14 19 22 31 1 32 31 1 45 28 3
SA 3600 Munn 36 (mod) Bally Hoo II
Iain Park-Ross 1.18 19 20 38 1 30 38 1 46 57 4

RETIRED:
UkuZwana , Hi Fidelity , Smack Water Jack , Unmatched , Hors D'Oeuvre , Sensation , Gumption , Alladdin , Pure Magic , AL , Unleased ,

Our main trimmer, Rodney Tanner, has elected to stand down from our team. We are sorry to lose such a fine sailor and we will certainly miss him. He has been a major asset to our combined talents.

I would like to thank him publicly for three years commitment to the Smackwater Jack team and for the countless days of excitement and fun we have enjoyed in his company on and off the water.

We wish him every success in his future sailing endeavours and hope to see him back on board in the future.

6th December, 2006
Twilight Series CC- Race 8

Race in a nutshell:

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (PHRF): 3rd

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (IRC): 1st

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): 10th

Position Line (Class 2): 2nd

Entries Spinnaker Class: 15

Total Entries: 60

Ave Speed: 6.1 knots

Max Speed: 10.9 kts

Distance: 8.59 nm.

Time: 0.52.25

Weather Forecast: Clear, Wind South West 15 knots.
Temp 26C

Weather Actual: Clear, Wind SW 10 – 15 knots
Baro: 1015 hPa

Course: Start No: 10 (S) – No.4 (S) - No.8 (S) - Milnerton (S) – No. 4 (P) - 10 (P)

Seas: Chop of 0.5m

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, .5oz Quantum reacher

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow) Total: 512 kg

Well….it’s been one hell of a week in so many ways!

Let’s start with Monday when I lost my cell phone whilst doing an off-road bicycle ride. Panic! All my contact numbers and no back-ups on computer either. That’s another story as my most recent phone decided after taking a dunking during the Mykonos race in a spectacular broach off South Head, that it didn’t like salt water and started giving me peculiar data. That phone was only a month old at the time and the warranty is very explicit about water immersion, so I had to dump that phone and go back to my old Nokia 6600 which was not PC compatible – hence no back-up.

After a sweaty ride in my work clothes between 0830 and 10h00 on Monday morning, there was no sign of the phone, so I went directly to Autopage to get the phone blocked, new phone, new SIM card. To my total surprise the lady there informed me that not only did I qualify for a free phone, but I also could take a Blue-Tooth hands free kit PLUS a R 500 Woolworths voucher. Wow! I was impressed! I left there shop armed with a whole bag of goodies and my day was starting to feel not so bad after all.

Then my friend Bruce phoned me to tell me that thieves had broken in to his factory over the weekend and stolen all four wheels off my J27’s road trailer. Thank heavens I am insured with Daly’s.

The next morning the lady from Autopage phoned to say she had a mistake. I did not qualify for a new phone. “Please bring it all back in the original packaging and stop using the phone” she said.

I was now not impressed. Anyway after prolonged negotiations, we sorted it all out and the Nokia N73 is still in my pocket. Lovely bit of electronics.

On Tuesday morning I took my two big dogs for an early morning walk and ended with one of them almost breaking my leg. The stupid (but affectionate) mutt, weighing in at a considerable 40 kgs. ran head first into my left leg at about 30 kph and it feels like I have damaged some of the ligaments.

There has been a flurry of emails between myself and RCYC and the whole membership proposal has ended up in one big shambles, resulting in me withdrawing myself with immediate effect from all committee work at the club. It doesn’t seem right to be threatened with disciplinary hearings by one arm of the committee and then having to give my energy and time to another. I need some time out. I wonder if good sense will ultimately prevail?

All this happened before Wednesday. I arrived at the club with a distinct limp and hobbled onto Smackwater Jack to prepare her for the final series race. For once we had a moderate south westerly which usually provides lovely sailing on the bay. We had our full, regular crew on board and tested the new North mainsail with its full 2nd batten and it looks pretty good now.

As usual we were out early to test the breeze and the line. Our tactic was to sail up the line on starboard to reach the midpoint of the line on the gun and tack immediately onto port to give us a free beat to No. 4. Fortunately no-one seemed to want to be where we were and we executed our start to perfection, immediately sensing we were in the top three boats over the line. We rounded No. 4 buoy just behind the Pacer 27 in a gaggle of boats and got the reacher up, but not without almost broaching. As soon as we settled down, some of the fleet gybed off onto starboard, but we carried on, on the port gybe. The Laser 28 was a few lengths behind us and all the L34’s were as well.

About two thirds down the leg we gybed onto starboard and came across the Farr 40 “Alladin” on the port gybe. I indicated to their skipper that he needed to keep clear of us, but he just kept on coming. Eventually Rodney bellowed ‘STARBOARD’ at him, to which his response was: “I can’t gybe now as I only have rookie crew on board” And he just kept on coming. There were a few more heavy exchanges between their skipper and Rodney and I am sure I heard someone say: “Why are you making us gybe? This is Wednesday racing. It’s supposed to be fun” Well, I guess they should rather have entered the Cruising Class in that case.

Eventually we were able to luff up and squeeze behind them. Next up were the two L34’s Sensation and Lapwing in the same rule scenario, but both kept clear without a problem. We did our final gybe onto port on the layline, but Nic was having problems with the pole (again) and there was some confusion and a lot of shouting going on, with Nic getting multiple and opposing instructions from several of us.

The next moment the Pacer 27 appeared 2 meters in front of our bow. They had rounded the mark and tacked soon afterwards. They had apparently shouted three times but none of us had heard them call. We were too busy shouting at ourselves. I bore off in the nick of time and we shaved past the Pacer’s transom. That was a close call! (We were in the wrong, being weather boat and should have been keeping a proper lookout). I did look Rick and JJ up at the dock after racing and apologized for the incident. They were all cool about it. JJ said he thought he was about to be impaled by a J27 bow and had already started getting up to jump clear. That’s how close it was.

Next problem was Sensation wallowing out of control next to the mark. I’m not sure what happened to them, but we had to sail around them, then gybe. When we sheeted in to go to windward, the spinnaker pole had somehow got tangled in the genoa sheets and then Rodney really blew his top. Meanwhile the Laser had closed the gap whilst we were making mistakes.

It took some concentration to get the boat settled down and into a groove and the speed steady at 6,2 knots. As soon as that happened, we dropped the Laser behind us, but I knew they were too close and with their PHRF rating, we would have to beat them by at least 3 minutes for a victory. That’s the price one pays for making mistakes.

We held both L34’s till the end, finishing a few seconds behind Lapwing and a few seconds ahead of Sensation. The Laser was behind Sensation, some 46 seconds after out time. Not enough.

On our boat there was a sombre mood – a natural hangover from tension amongst the crew and something that needs to be sorted out as a matter of urgency.

Conditions for this race were fantastic. We missed first place by 1 min 26 seconds. The Laser had a dead tie for 1st place with HiFidelity – a 46 foot boat. With another 3rd place, I suppose we should take some solace that we at least won the series.

Harken Community Chest Twilight 8
6th December 2006 Wind SW 10 Knots, flat sea

Thanks to CREW: Dee, Chris, Ron, Ed, John & Dolf OOD: Noel Mallison

Spinnaker start 18h00
Sail #
Class Yacht
Skipper Club TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place
SA 3082
Laser 28 mod keel UkuZwana
Thomas Swana 0.97 18 43 11 0 53 11 0 51 35 1
SA 18881
Welborn 46 Hi Fidelity
de Villiers/Dawson 1.3 18 29 41 0 39 41 0 51 35 2
SA204
J27 Smack Water Jack
Trygve Roberts 0.995
0.936 18 42 25 0 52 25 0 52 9
0 49 4 3
1
SA 3600
Munn 36 (mod) Bally Hoo II
Iain Park-Ross 1.18 18 34 47 0 44 47 0 52 50 4
010
L 34 Lapwing
Robyn Keen 1.015 18 42 7 0 52 7 0 52 54 5
0001
Pacer 27s Unmatched
Rick Nankin 1.095 18 38 20 0 48 20 0 52 56 6
SA 1105
Farr 38 (No 3) Hocus Pocus
Errol Stern 1.065 18 40 11 0 50 11 0 53 27 7
44
L26 Hors D'Oeuvre
Peter Bam 0.955 18 46 0 0 56 0 0 53 29 8
005
L34 Sensation
AR Munnik 1.015 18 42 48 0 52 48 0 53 35 9
SA 4444
ILC 40 Gumption
N Mace 1.275 18 32 47 0 42 47 0 54 33 10
Nam 10
Farr 40 Alladdin
Bjon Geiger 1.09 18 43 25 0 53 25 0 58 13 11
SA 2127
Jaz 30 Monkeys in the Mist
Bernard Diebold 1.14 18 41 24 0 51 24 0 58 36 12
SA 190
J 27 Pure Magic
Alan Taylor 0.995 18 49 8 0 59 8 0 58 50 13
GBR 29r
Prodigy
Chris Frost 1.49 18 30 2 0 40 2 0 59 39 14
SA 3444
Fast 42 Maestro
Craig Middleton 1.17 18.35 35 47 1 6 47 1 18 8 15

2nd December, 2006
Flag Officers Team Racing

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Clear, Fresh SE, 25C, Swell 2,5m SSW

Weather Actual: Clear, Light NE to SE, 27C, Flat seas

Course 10 (P) – Paarden Island (P) – Milnerton (P) – Paarden Island (S) – 10 (P) – Paarden Island (S) – 10 (S)

Sails: Full Main, No. 1 Genoa, .5 oz Quantum BP Spinnaker

Crew:
Trygve Roberts (Helm)
Charles Crosby (Main)
Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa)
Phillip Rentschler (Halyards)
Craig Tarr (Mast)
Simon Penso (Bow)
Total - (520 kgs)


Position Line (Class 2): 2nd

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (PHRF): 2nd

Position Handicap Class 2 (PHRF): 1st

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): 9th

Entries: 25
Ave Speed: 5.3 kts

Max Speed: 10.4 kts

Distance: 7.89 nm.

Time: 1.06.57

The fresh South Easter forecasted was nowhere to be seen. The RCYC website had advertised this event as a 1430 start, which coupled with me being 15 minutes later than normal, put a 45 minute time pressure on our team. There was the usual congestion at the door as the RCYC security officials did their thing. This hard nosed attitude still has me flummoxed – but more of that later in this report as it would appear that my crew and I have been singled out by the rear commodore sailing, Mr. Nicholas Mace for some special attention. So much for a club member putting forward a suggestion as to how the club might improve! There can be no doubt that the criticism about RCYC’s attitude to guests, posted on this website a few weeks ago, and removed by myself after consultation with the Commodore, Craig Middleton, has now turned into a witch-hunt against Smackwater Jack.

Unfortunately I will have to expose it for what it is. I offered to do this the nice way and now it has turned ugly.

The net result of the race time having been brought forward by 30 minutes, despite it being advertised on the website as 1430, meant casting off half rigged and frantically trying to get everything sorted out before the gun and whilst under motor. We arrived at the start area with four minutes to go to the gun and barely enough speed to sail to the pin end of the line, when we heard two hooters and saw the AP flag going up. Ah, a reprieve!

Five minutes later we got a new signal and decided to go for a port start up at the pin end. The wind was light, patchy and non-existent in places. Fortunately for us, we were able to manoeuvre into clear air and had a very good start on the gun with Gumption (Nicolas Mace), Wallbanger and Thunderchild to leeward of us.

The first few minutes was anyone’s guess as to where the wind would come from next and we kept our speed high and headed towards the port side of the course with the J27 Hillbilly hot on our heels. The wind freed enough to try the spinnaker, but we gybed first before hoisting to get a better angle to the mark. That proved to be an astute move as we immediately gained on all the bigger boats ahead. Then we parked for a minute or two as we waited anxiously to get into the patch of south easterly less than 50 meters away. The rest of the fleet was spread out behind us. The big boats with their tall rigs were able to sniff out the breeze at the higher altitude and a group of them got away from us very quickly. Finally the breeze arrived and we held Wallbanger all the way in to the Paarden Island mark, where we did a seaman-like rounding and slick hoist. Poor Simon was sweating buckets as he tried to master the foredeck for the first time – and a good job he did of it as well!

With only Class 1 boats ahead of us, we worked the boat hard trying to extract maximum speed, but the best we got was 10,4 knots – not bad in 12 knots of breeze I guess. Wallbanger and The L34 Spectrum took their kites down early and we used the time to our advantage and did a perfectly timed strike and mark rounding, with the spinnaker disappearing down the hatch exactly as we hardened up around the mark. Slick crew work. That immediately put us about 10 boat lengths ahead of Spectrum, which had been level with us before the mark. To avoid the fleet running down on to us, we stuck in a short tack shoreward, doing an easy 6,4 knots hard on the wind.

For the rest of the beat, we worked the lifts to max and in the process took another 20 lengths out of Spectrum and almost caught Wallbanger before the mark.

Looking down towards No.10 mark, it was clear that the wind was still light and patchy there and we would need to use all our skill not to fall into one of the many holes in that area, but the Paarden island mark was coming up fast, so we rounded and headed high to allow us to fly the spinnaker once the angle was better. We did another good hoist and set and quickly made up ground on the boats ahead of us without spinnakers.

We heard a hooter and realised that the course had been shortened. Up ahead it was just a parking lot with boats lying scattered – facing in all directions in zero wind. Which way to go? The longer route to the wall or the shorter route to No.10? After a brief debate, we concluded the shortest option was best.

We put the genoa back up and took the kite down and wallowed in agony as we watched the next wave of boats all with spinnakers up rushing down to join us. All that hard work for nothing!

Spectrum and a Farr 40 both came steaming down and over us. They had enough momentum to carry them over the line. How many times haven’t I been in this scenario!! There is absolutely nothing one can do without wind.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable race and I thought we sailed almost faultlessly given the difficult and fluky conditions.

For once we were back at the club nice and early by 1545 with plenty of beer time. Whilst packing up, I dropped the boat’s padlock overboard – oh well, better than the car keys!

With the whole team standing in the upstairs pub, enjoying a cold beer and discussing our race, we were approached by Nicolas Mace, who after introducing himself, suggested that all my crew had not been signed in correctly. Quite right he was, as both Charles and Greg had driven in with me and we entered through the side gate. In my rush to get to the start line on time, I had forgotten to sign the two of them in. No problem in doing that of course, and Nic Mace had every right to insist that it should be done according to club rules. The problem is why was our boat singled out for the crew check and no one else’s? This took place at the bar in earshot of all and sundry. I thought the whole scene was inappropriate and confrontational. Right in line with the current goings on at checkpoint Charlie.

Well, it kind of spoilt a very pleasant afternoon on the water and the club has once again offended six people (two members and four guests) in its attempt to bully, enforce, and cajole guests into joining. I am amazed at the lack of dignity and the obvious witch-hunt being focused on my crew and myself. Out of the 25 boat fleet, Mr. Mace (or one his appointees) spent some time after racing, checking the guest register, and making a point of singling Smackwater Jack out. What a sad, sad day for sailing in this country – and all I was doing was trying to improve the club.

During my meeting last week between the Commodore, President, and myself I was given categorical assurances that the guest control measures were only applied on Wednesday twilight races. Weekends there would be no checks, as those days present no issues. So clearly, there is a lack of communication between the commodore and the rear-commodore sailing (Mr.Mace)

The knives are out for me it would seem. However, I will not be intimidated and if this story needs to be told, I will do it. Watch this space.

Besides all this nonsense, we still managed to sail a good race.

Results:

1st Farr 38 – Al – Robbie van Rooyen (Red Team)
2nd J27 – Smackwater Jack – Trygve Roberts (Green Team)
3rd L34 – Spectrum – Andy James (Yellow Team)
4th Jaz 30 – Monkeys – Jackie Brand (White Team)
5th Fast 42 – Maestro – Craig Middleton (Green Team)
6th J27 – Hillbilly – Peter Hill (White Team)
7th H34 – Celine lll – Volker Vierhaus (White Team)
8th Compass 47 – Solitaire – Dave Elcock (Blue Team)
9th Simonis 35 – Wallbanger – Brian Gardener (Red Team)
10th ILC40 – Gumption – Nicolas Mace (Red Team)
11th Atlantic 49 – Aurora – Mel Hawtrey (Green Team)
12th L52 – Thunderchild – Trevor McGaw (Blue Team)
13th Laser 28 – Ukuzwana – Thomas Swana (Red Team)
14th L26 – Hors d’Ouvres – Peter Bam (Green Team)
15th Farr 40 – African Renaissance – Wayne Badenhorst (Silver Team)
16th RCOD – Ariel – Sherif Saville (Silver Team)
17th L34 – Sensation – Chunky (Yellow Team)
18th Swede 55 – Spilhaus – Teddy Kuttel (Blue Team)
19th L34 – WWB – Patrick Holloway (White Team)
20th J27 – Pure Magic – Alan Taylor (Yellow Team)
21st L26 – JML – Isivunguvungu (Yellow Team)
22nd Muira – Apricot – Bat tromp (Silver Team)
23rd Farr 40 – Majimoto – Lindsay Birch (Silver Team)
24th Vickers 41 – Avanti – Grant Saunders (Blue Team)
25th L34 – Aquavit – Phil Flockton (Silver Team)

1st Team – White – 17 points (Rear Commodore Inside House)
2nd Team – Green – 18 points (Commodore)
3rd Team – Red – 20 points (Rear Commodore Sailing)
4th Team – Blue – 38 points (Treasurer)
5th Team – Yellow – 40 points (Rear Commodore Outside House)
6th Team – Silver – 53 points (Vice Commodore)

The burden of responsibility:

The club asked me at the 11th hour to be Officer of the Day and as usual I said "No problem"

A business commitment in Tableview, meant having to drive back to RCYC along Marine Drive and get a "real" experience of the wind strength. It was pumping through between 25 and 35 knots. On Rietvlei a few hardy windsurfers were skating over the lake at high speeds. Passing through Paarden Island the breeze was even stronger and the final admission of a blown out race was the rise up on to the elevated road near the container terminal where I saw the bay white with wind driven spume.

At RCYC, only about a kilometer further, the weather was beautiful and warm with a 5 knot north wester suggesting perfect sailing conditions, but I knew it was a rotor from the south easter. The crew of Gumption arrived back as I walked into the clubhouse and they were vehement in their opinion that it was too strong in the bay to race - So I cancelled by 16h00.

It was not a popular decision and I heard several mutters about "why can't we race?"...."the breeze is not heavy at all"... etc. etc.

I felt bad listening to all the chirps, but when I drove home at 1930, the wind was still howling through the channel in Woodstock, so I hope it was the right decision after all. I guess the race officer has to make a decision based on the general safety of the majority of sailors and not just the top ten.

Table Bay Week Update:

Entries for Table Bay Week are looking bleak with very little support for this event by most boat owners. During the week I sent an email out to all Class 2 boat owners and the feedback was disappointing to say the least. What was interesting to see that almost everyone is in favour of moving the event to May.

The IRC Class 2 entries appear to be the 3 J27's and the Beneteau First Class 7,5. I would imagine the Laser 28 will enter as well. Other boats that could enter will be the Pacer 27 (not sure if it has an IRC certificate?) and the two L34's Lapwing and Sensation, but both L34's would prefer sailing with the other L34's in the Cruising Class. The Norlin 34 from FBYC is another IRC possibility.

New mainsail:

The odd bubble appearing near the luff and behind the 2nd batten has had the fundi's at North perlexed and I must give them credit - they have had their full team of experts down at Smackwater Jack on two separate occassions trying to figure out why the new sail has this peculiar problem. The only difference between the old and new sails (other than the type of cloth) is the old sail has a full 2nd batten, whereas the new one was built with a 3/4 second batten. The North guys have come to the conclusion that they are going to have to go back to a full 2nd batten to solve the problem. We will test the new sail on Saturday.

22nd November, 2006
Twilight Series CC- Race 6

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Clear, Wind South 18 knots. Temp 24C. Swell SW 2.5m

Weather Actual: Clear, Wind SE 20 to 25 knots.
Baro: 1016 hPa

Course: Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P)- No.8 (P) – Paarden Island (P) - 8 (P) – No.10 (P) Finish

Seas: Fairly flat with small chop 0.5m

Sails: Full Main, No.3 Genoa, .5oz Quantum Reacher

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Charles Crosby (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow) Total: 527 kg

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): 8th

Position Line (Class 2): 3rd

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (PHRF): 4th

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (IRC): 1st

Entries Spinnaker Class: 12
Total Entries: 54

Ave Speed: 7.0 kts

Max Speed: 12.5 kts

Distance: 7.93 nm.

Time: 00:51.34

I woke early on Wednesday and instinctively flinched looking at the pile of white cloud over the Hottentot-Hollands and sort of resigned myself to another blown out race, but the wind got up to about 20 knots and seemed to stay there. Even at RCYC, the breeze seemed reasonable.

All the crew made it through checkpoint Charlie in time. It would seem that faxing the crew list through is not really working. I have tried this system two weeks in a row and still the good folk at the door can’t seem to find the list. Anyway, we set off on time and hoisted the new main, which has been back to the loft to sort the peculiar bubble out near the top batten. The loft had lifted the reinforcing patches behind the batten pocket and reglued them, so we were to see if the sail was setting properly first before they would restitch the sail. We hoisted the sail and then Charles noticed the 2nd batten was missing altogether. It had either popped out as we hoisted the sail, or the loft had forgotten to reinsert it. Whatever, it was gone. Charles then understood why we always leave the dock early, as it gave us time to remove the main and put the old main up, which was fortunately still on the boat.

In the start area, the south easter was just kicking in, so we selected the blade and the red kite, which is easier to manage in the strong breeze. We chose our spot on the line and had a perfect start, right where we wanted to be, with two big boats, Gumption and Ballyhoo-Too to leeward of us. These boats quickly powered through our lee, despite our 6,7 knots on the log, but we were lying first in the class 2 fleet, just being able to hold the First 7,5 “Always Well” off till the weather mark. The J27 ‘Pure Magic’ was out again, but sadly ‘Hillbilly’ was not. Alan was struggling to keep “Pure Magic” on an even keel and lost a lot of ground on the first beat. Still getting the hang of the boat, he decided to play it safe and not fly bag in the fresh conditions, which allowed us to get far ahead.

I had planned for a gybe set and that proved to be correct. We executed a good gybe and got the kite setting fairly quickly and enjoyed a fast broad reach down to No.8 at around 11 knots, but just not enough horse power to break through on the plane. “Always well” went belting off downwind in a shower of spray and broached a minute later allowing us to catch up a bit, but they were really cooking. The Pacer 27, skippered by Rick Nankin with a whole bunch of rock stars on board had been late for the start, but also caught us just before the leeward mark. The Pacer looked fantastic doing close to 20 knots with its smaller asymmetric up. We rounded close behind them and then proceeded to haul them in upwind.

We were able to hold the Pacer behind us boat for boat upwind, all the way to Paarden Island mark, but the moment they free off onto a reach in that sort of breeze, they make us look pedestrian, but their high rating will no doubt even the playing field a little.

On the second reach, a rivet jambed the pole end and we had to strike our spinnaker. It took two thirds of the leg to sort it out and by the time we had the kite back up, we had lost a lot of ground. The strike was good, and I miss-called the layline to the finish, resulting in us having to squeeze in another two tacks to finish.

I was surprised that we still managed a 4th place in a fairly hot fleet after our spinnaker bugger-up. Charles did a good job on the main trim getting us very good speed upwind and he manfully wanted control of the backstay, traveller, coarse and fine trim. He must have slept well that night!

‘Always Well’ cleaned up with a solid 1st place, a minute ahead of the Welbourne 46 “HiFidelity” on corrected time. They were in turn, a minute ahead of the Farr 38 “Al” whilst we were a minute adrift of “Al” – So a solid performance by Lance Burger and Ralph Thomas on the little skiff and a well deserved victory, in my humble opinion.

I see from the results that the Pacer was logged in last place, which seemed odd, and on closer inspection I see that the club has not allocated a PHRF rating to it yet, hence the no corrected time status. Hopefully this will get sorted out quickly.

Community Chest Twilight 6
22nd Nov 2006

Thanks to CREW: Ron, Ed, Geoff, Dee, Chris, Tony OOD: Tommy Walker

Spinnaker : Course A1 5.74nm Start 17h50 SE less than 20 Knots, flat
Sail #
Class Yacht
Skipper Club TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place
SA 3141
Always Well Burger/Thomas
First 7.5 1.01 18 38 31 0 48 31 0 49 0 1
SA 18881
Hi Fidelity de Villiers/Dawson
Welborn 46 1.3 18 28 26 0 38 26 0 49 58 2
SA 630
AL Robbie van Rooyen
Farr 38 1.09 18 36 38 0 46 38 0 50 50
SA204
Smack Water Jack Trygve Roberts
J27 0.995
0.936 18 41 34 0 51 34 0 51 19
0 48 16 4
1
SA 4444
Gumption N Mace
ILC 40 1.275 18 30 51 0 40 51 0 52 5
SA 3600
Bally Hoo II Iain Park-Ross
Munn 36 (mod) 1.18 18 34 19 0 44 19 0 52 17 6
SA 3082
UkuZwana Thomas Swana
Laser 28 mod keel 0.97 18 46 27 0 56 27 0 54 46 7
SA 3800
Unleased
Leisure 42R 1.27 18 33 58 0 43 58 0 55 50 8
SA 190
Pure Majic A Taylor
J 27 0.995 18 46 42 0 56 42 0 56 25 0 0 0 9
SA339
Halali E Lehmann
Impact Mod 0.95 18 53 45 1 3 45 1 0 34 10
SA 2127
Monkeys in the Mist Bernard Diebold
Jaz 30 1.14 18 45 32 0 55 32 1 3 19 0 0 0 11
0001
Unmatched Rick Nankin
Pacer 27s ??? 18 38 9 0 48 9 12

15th November, 2006
Twilight Series CC- Race 5

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Cloudy with 30% rain, Wind West 15 knots.
Temp 20C

Weather Actual: Clear, Wind NW 10 knots. Temp 23C.
Baro: 1015 hPa

Course: Start No:10 (S) – 2 (S)- Paarden Island (S) - 8 (S) – Paarden Island (S) - No.10 (S) Finish

Seas: Long ocean swell 2.5m

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, .75oz MTN Spinnaker

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Andrew James (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow) Total: 553 kg

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): 6th

Position Line (Class 2): 2nd

Position PHRF Class 1 & 2 (PHRF): 3rd

Position IRC Class 1 & 2 (IRC): 1st

Entries Spinnaker Class: 11

Total Entries: 67

Ave Speed: 6.1 kts

Max Speed: 6.8 kts

Distance: 15.4 nm.

Time: 01:26.57

A cool and moderate north westerly greeted us in the main harbour as we hoisted our new mainsail - a perfect breeze for testing new sails. It looked pretty good and seems a bit longer in the luff and foot than the old sail. The new fabric (the latest from North) sets beautifully. The only problem we noticed was a 'bubble' near the second batten pocket - being sorted out at time of writing and no doubt a small problem to resolve.

A big fleet of 67 boats were out for this twilight race and the predicted westerly course which I had alrteady programmed into the plotter, was changed shortly before our start to C1 (NW). For the first time we had all three J27's in the same fleet.

We picked our spot about midway on the line, so to have a freer beat to No.2 buoy. Hillbilly was a long way OCS and were recalled. We were on the line on starboard at zero seconds and tacked immediately onto port. We were looking good with the L34, Lapwing, being the only other Class 2 boat slightly ahead of us.

We nailed the No.2 mark on one tack and rounded smoothly to do a bearaway set. I thought it odd that half the fleet did gybe sets and figured some of them must have thought there was better pressure on the right hand side of the course. It all looked even to me, so we carried on with the port gybe, following the Farr 38 "Al" and "Gumption" down to Milnerton.

The breeze was getting uncomfortably light, so I called for a gybe, mainly to stay in contention with the rest of the fleet. meanwhile Hillbilly had overtaken us by doing a gybe set and suddenly it dawned on me that we were not going to Milnerton, but to the Paarden Island mark.

Aaaargh!! So that's why so many boats did gybe sets. It really helps to know the course. Jeez! Talk about basics.

It was a small consolation that both 'Al' and 'Gumption' went almost all the way to Milnerton before realising their mistake. Still, it proves once again the "sheep syndrome" is in force. Respected, fast boat in front, so we assume they know the course and we simply follow without actually thinking about the course. And to think after half a lifetime spent sailing that I can still make stupid mistakes like that!

Anyway, we weren't looking too shabby and were able to hold station about 10 boat lengths behind 'Hillbilly', whilst "Pure Magic" had spinnaker snarl-ups and other 'new boat/new crew' teething problems which kept them well behind us.

The wind had backed a little, so I prepped the crew for a tack immediately after rounding the leeward mark. We stayed on port for about 4 minutes and when we tacked back onto starboard, we found ourselves about 30 lengths upwind of Hillbilly. Just as I was about to feel really pleased with my tactics, I saw that Hillbilly had lost two of their four crew members overboard - the result of snapping a lifeline. What a shame for them.

We sailed as fast as we could in the light breeze and lumpy ocean being able to sustain 5.9 to 6.1 knots upwind to hold our position in the fleet.

'Lapwing' was cooking and I knew we didnt have enough gas to catch her on handicap.

"Ballyhoo-Too" the Mumm 36 was back in the fray after a lengthy revamp/repair job and she quickly took a place on the podium with a respectable 2nd.

We did sail well enough to secure a 3rd place PHRF (missing 2nd by 30 seconds or so) and a 1st under IRC. (but the lastmentioned is probably due to the fact that only two boats in our fleet actually have an IRC certificate!)

Lovely sailing in moderate breezes allowing for tactics to be fully employed.

Community Chest Twilight 5
15th Nov 2006

Thanks to CREW: Ron, Ed, Geoff, John, Steve, Duncan OOD: Steve Meek



Spinnaker : Course C1 = 7.04nm Start 17h50 NW, less than 10 Knots, choppy
Sail #
Class Yacht
Skipper Club TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place
010
L 34 Lapwing
Alan Keen 1.015 19 14 14 1 24 14 1 25 30 1
SA 3600
Munn 36 (mod) Bally Hoo II
Iain Park-Ross 1.18 19 2 54 1 12 54 1 26 1 2
SA204
J27 Smack Water Jack
Trygve Roberts 0.995
0.936 19 16 57 1 26 57 1 26 31
1 21 23 3
1
SA 4242
Fast 42 Tenacity
Errol Stern 1.17 19 4 33 1 14 33 1 27 13 4
SA 630
Farr 38 AL
Robbie van Rooyen 1.09 19 10 48 1 20 48 1 28 4 5
SA 198
J27 Hillbilly
Peter Hill 0.995
0.935 19 18 35 1 28 35 1 28 8
1 22 50 6
2
Nam 10
Farr 40 Alladdin
Bjon Geiger 1.09 19 13 5 1 23 5 1 30 34 7
42
L 26 Wild Goose
Ernie Chicken 0.955 19 24 52 1 34 52 1 30 36 9
SA 3141
First 7.5 Always Well
Burger/Thomas 1.01 19 24 53 1 34 53 1 35 50 10
SA 190
J 27 Pure Majic
A Taylor 0.995 19 30 21 1 40 21 1 39 51 0 0 0 11
SA 4444
ILC 40 Gumption
N Mace 1.275 D N F
SA 18881
Welborn 46 Hi Fidelity
de Villiers/Dawson 1.3 D N F
0001
Pacer 27s Unmatched
Rick nankin ??? D N C
SA 702
Charger 33 FTI Flyer
Keith Mattison 0.985 D N C
SA 2127
Jaz 30 Monkeys in the Mist
Bernard Diebold 1.14 D N C

8th November, 2006
Twilight Series CC- Race 4

Race cancelled due to excessive wind speeds [ 30 to 50 knots]

1st November, 2006
Twilight Series CC- Race 3

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Cloudy, Wind South West 10 knots.
Temp 24C

Weather Actual: Clear, Wind light and variable 0 to 12 knots NNE to South
Baro: 1005 hPa

Course: Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P)- Milnerton (P) – Paarden Island (S) - 10 (S)

Seas: Flat

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, .5oz Quantum reacher

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow) Total: 512 kg

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): DNF

Position Line (Class 2): DNF

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (PHRF): DNF

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (IRC): DNF

Entries Spinnaker Class: 10
Total Entries: 60

Ave Speed: N/A

Max Speed: 7.3 kts

Distance: 6.04 nm.

Time: DNF

A whisper of a wind from the NNE greeted us as we checked out conditions and a probable course for the day and I heard a collective sigh from the crew when the VHF message came from the bridge advising a course of 10 - Paarden Island – Milnerton - Paarden Island – 10. “Oh No – not another soldiers course” we moaned to each other.

Of course, being the Race Officer is another matter altogether in the light and fluky stuff and its anyone’s guess as to what the breeze will do. The spinnaker class had its start delayed by five minutes. By 1755 there was just a hint of breeze over the line, forcing everyone to start on port tack. Only Rick Nankin in the Pacer 27 was to windward of us. We appeared to be the only two boats to make a clean getaway on the gun. The age old problem of having Class 1 & 2 non spinnaker boats on the line during our start once again presented itself – this time a large Class 1 boat being right in the way of Alan Taylor’s J27 “Pure Magic” causing him to delay his start, but he caught up nicely to round the first mark in third place and about 2 minutes behind us.

It was interesting comparing the speed of the J27 to the Pacer 27 in the light breeze. We were able to hold the Pacer till the breeze picked up over 10 knots, after which the Pacer took 17 seconds out of us to the first mark. Its pointing ability was impressive and even a fraction higher than ours, but I guess it must be borne in mind that we were using our No.1 Genoa and sheeting beyond the shrouds whereas the Pacer’s sheeting angle is much tighter. The first three boats at the weather mark, were all 27 footers ironically. The breeze had settled down into a light to moderate southerly and as a consequence the course actually turned into a respectable one with a reasonable upwind leg involving one or two tacks.

Downwind, the Pacer gradually dropped us, but we were able to hold our own with Prodigy and Tenacity (a Fast 42). At the Milnerton mark, it was the Pacer 27, Prodigy, ourselves and Tenacity. The Pacer was able to hold its own back upwind to Paarden Island and held its 1st place.

Rounding Paarden Island for the final reach down to the finish, it became clear that the breeze was dying. Some of the big class 1 boats had caught up at that stage. The Pacer sneaked over the line still ahead followed by a few of the big boats. We were convinced we would take the Spinnaker Class on handicap, but 300 meters from the line, we hit that magical speed of 0.0 knots and there we parked with the rest of the fleet expertly navigating themselves into the same calm zone one by one.

The R.O. announced a cut-off time for the spinnaker class of 1905 which we thought a bit odd at the time, whilst the class 1 boats got a cut-off time announced of 1920. Quite odd considering we had all sailed the same course and we had started 5 minutes ahead of class 1. Anyway, once the radio call is made, it becomes law, so we started the donkey and headed back to moorings. A lovely evening sail but with a disappointing result. And another DNF result for us this season. We seem to be on a roll now!

The entire Class 2 fleet had their race abandoned.
So, this brings me to the inevitable point of discussing the issue of cut-off times. Should it be 30 minutes after the first finisher in the class?
Should there be a time differential between class 1 & 2 boats within the spinnaker fleet?
Is it fair to compare say the smallest boat (Buccaneer) in Class 2 to the biggest (L34) and still expect the small boat to finish within 30 minutes of the leader?
How long do we honestly expect the bridge crew to sit in the dark and wait for every boat to finish?
What is the fairest and most practical way to apply these rules?
How late do we want to delay prize giving by waiting for all finishers?

Each one of us, whether a serious campaigner or just a casual sailor, likes to finish a race. I guess first prize is to get everyone to finish. When no-one finishes in a class, it is not a satisfactory outcome.

One of the obvious solutions is to have courses with shorter legs keeping closer in to the bridge position with roundings of No.10 buoy compulsory on each leg. This would give the R.O. the opportunity to shorten course on several occasions. I know the cruising boats generally prefer less tacking and gybing on longer courses, but a result is probably the lesser of the two evils.

Longer courses in light winds are a recipe for trouble.

If you have any ideas on this issue, please feel free to drop me an email.

25th October, 2006

Twilight Series - Race No.2

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Clear, Wind South 15 knots.
Temp 18C

Weather Actual: Accurate, except wind was 20 to 25 knots.
Baro: 1001 hPa

Course: Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P)- No.8 (P) – Paarden Island (P) - 8 (P) – No.10 (P) Finish

Seas: Choppy 0.5m

Sails: Full Main, No.3 Genoa, .75oz MTN Spinnaker

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Waldo Zevenster (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow) Total: 507 kg

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): 3rd

Position Line (Class 2): 1st

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (PHRF): 1st

Position Handicap Class 1 & 2 (IRC): 1st

Entries Spinnaker Class: 5

Total Entries: 55

Ave Speed: 6.2 kts

Max Speed: 13.8 kts

Distance: 11.4 nm.

Time: 01:49.30

Last night was one of those special days when the entire crew steps off the boat after racing literally beaming in the afterglow of a perfectly sailed race and superb performance. Everything went right for us from beginning to end as we dominated this race amongst the big boats and made those two 40 footers look pedestrian as we reeled them in on the downwind legs doing almost double their speed.

Everyone arrived on time having passed through the latest RCYC rigid security checkpoint, which I have already nicknamed Stalag 17. With a brisk southerly of around 20 to 25 knots I made an early call to rig the blade. We cast off promptly at 1710 and were the first boat to arrive in the starting area, where, much to my surprise, we found the wind to be less than 12 knots, so we had a brief debate about whether we should remove the No.3 and and go for either the No.2 or No.1.

Finally we punted for the No.2 and got it rigged, but we had no sooner settled down to plan our strategy, when the breeze was back with a vengeance, so we immediately called for another sail change. Poor Nic! We hadn’t started the race and he had already done three sail changes. We figured we would easily lay Paarden Island mark from the pin end, so we hung around there with the L34 “Lapwing” and the First Class 7.5 “Always Well” leaving the other two spinnaker entries up at the wall end – a Farr 40 and a Fast 42.

Our start was about perfect and we powered away over ‘Lapwing’ and ‘Always Well’ to lead our small group up to the weather mark. We were registering 7.5 knots steady and were slowly pulling ahead of ‘Always Well’ whilst ‘Lapwing’ was unable to roll over the top of us. The two big boats sailed the longer, freer course and rounded just ahead of us. All of the boats read the wind correctly and opted for gybe sets. The Farr 40 went for broke and put their kite up, but because of a fairly beam on wind angle were forced to sail deep and not stay on the rhumb line.

The Fast 42 elected to play safe and did not fly their kite, but stayed on the rhumb line. After our gybe, we delayed our hoist and first climbed upwind for a better approach angle to No.8 and hoisted our MTN kite in a lull. Things were a little hectic, so we pulled Nic back behind the mast and left the blade flying as we quickly built speed up to 12 knots and had the foils singing and spray flying as we had long periods of sustained planing. Fabulous weather just ideal for J27’s. We were matching the speed of the Farr 40 with kite up, but sailing directly towards the mark, whereas they were falling well off the angle. I can only imagine the comments on the leading Fast 42 (without kite) as they watched this little J27 skating down the waves and about to overtake them. The Beneteau ‘Always Well’ with their blistering downwind speed had overtaken us as well, but only just.

We did a great strike, holding on to our kite longer than the rest, and whipped the boat through a tack immediately after the mark, whereas everyone else hardened up and remained on port tack. We were instantly lying in first place, but the big boats would overhaul us upwind. We had to try and point to lay Paarden Island in one tack and consequently our boat speed dropped down to 5,7 knots, but we were able to stay within striking range of the big boats despite the speed differential.

‘Lapwing’ had retired and the ‘Always Well’ had dropped far behind us on the upwind leg.

Another good gybe and rapid acceleration for height before hoisting, put is in clean air and open water. Up went the kite and we immediately rocketed onto a full plane with the foils groaning away as we screeched over the waves in a blur of speed and spray right on the edge of control. The crew were excellent with lots of communication going on and everyone being sensitive to weight distribution and sail trim. Once again, we reeled the big boats in from behind getting to within seconds of them by the leeward mark. We had long since stopped worrying about ‘Always Well’ who despite their 20 knot downwind potential had fallen far behind us and besides they have to also give us a small time allowance. Our challenge was to nail the two big boats.

The final short beat in to the finish did not present any real opportunities for tactical advantages, but we sailed at our best level with quick tacks to take the hooter two minutes behind the two big boats. Needless to say, we crucified them on handicap by almost 7 minutes.

Despite the small spinnaker entry, we had a great sail and hope that more boats pluck up the courage to sail spinnaker class as the weeks progress.

RESULTS:

Spinnaker Course A1 start 17h50
Sail # Class Yacht Skipper Club TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place

SA204 J27 Smack Water Jack Trygve Roberts 0.995 0.936 18 38 34 0 48 34 0 48 19 0 45 28 1 1
SA 3141 First 7.5 Always Well Burger/Thomas 1.01 18 40 29 0 50 29 0 50 59 2
Nam 10 Farr 40 Alladdin Bjon Geiger 1.1 18 36 54 0 46 54 0 51 35 3
SA 4242 Fast 42 Tenacity Errol Stern 1.17 18 36 53 0 46 53 0 54 51 4
010 L 34 Lapwing Alan Keen 1.015 D N F

Things break on boats. Especially electronic things, of which we have a fair amount on Smackwater Jack. I don't know if I've just been a bit unlucky, but we seem to have been bedeviled with an array of electronic problems in recent times. This past year has seen our TackTick go on the blink without any warning and after a few carefully worded emails to the parent company in the UK, I was given a new replacement unit, which is working perfectly.

In recent weeks we have once again experienced unreliability problems with our NAVMAN 5600 Chart plotter. A year ago, we had software problems with the unit, which was eventually sorted out, by trial and error, by reflashing the unit with the latest software. Last week the unit would not register a sattelite fix at all. In exasperation, I took it back to the agents in Cape Town, who ( and let's give credit when its due) handled me very professionally and gave me a new replacement unit, which I fitted on Sunday only to find the unit still not working. Damn!

That led me to do some further checks and I discovered a frayed cable just under the antenna dome waterproofing exit. So I carefully re-soldered the cable and did a dry test. Still not working!

So I went to buy a new antenna today and now everything works perfectly, except I have to re-enter ALL my waypoints and routes. The cost of the antenna which is quite a sophisticated piece of electronics, was only R285, which I thought was very reasonable.

Well done Pertec! Your customer is happy again.

I was doing a general boat clean-up inside the hull, when I discovered that my original "home-made" waterproof electrical connection for the bilge pump was showing signs of rust. Somehow the seawater had worked its way into 3cm of solid silicone. So I had to open that mess up - clean and cut all the affected wires and make a new waterproof joint. This time with epoxy. And all that took me the entire day and lots of sweat.

Yes. The joys of boat ownership

18th October, 2006

Twilight Series Race No.1

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Clear, Wind South East 30 knots.
Temp 23C

Weather Actual: Accurate, except wind was only 20 to 22 knots. Temp. 26C
Baro: 1018 hPa

Course: Start No:10 (P) – Milnerton (P)- No.2 (P) – Milnerton (P) - 2 (P) – No.8 (P) – No.10 (P)

Seas: Choppy 1.0m

Sails: Full Main, No.2 Genoa,

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Charles Crosby (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Andrea Giovaninni (Mast & tactician), Nic Baigrie (Bow) Total: 507 kg

Position Line (Classes 1 & 2): 5th

Position Handicap Class 1 (PHRF): 2nd

Total Entries: 40

Ave Speed: 6.5 kts

Max Speed: 10.5 kts

Distance: 16.3 nm.

Time: 01:33.04

I was expecting racing to be cancelled after a four day howling Cape Doctor, but amazingly the wind seemed to slacken off all over town, but Table Bay still had a respectable 20 to 25 knots, so we were sent off.

As usual I entered Spinnaker Class and was unaware that we were one of only two entries - the other being the First Class 7.5 Sprit boat. We grabbed Andrea at the last minute off the dock as our 6th crew member and set the boat up with a full main and No.3 Genoa. Our course was announced as A1, which I immediately queried with the bridge as I needed to know that the Paarden Island mark had been replaced. The race officer came back with an “oops” and “Spinnaker Class standby for a course amendment", which turned into a horrible soldiers course with primarily tight reaching components. Bad news for the J27! We quickly figured the reaches would be too tight for the kite, so we changed to our No.2 in quick order and with only seconds to spare before the gun – And we were off going fast at 7.5 knots.

The Navman chart plotter has once again given up the ghost and I have now reached the point, where I have to label this product as unreliable. This is the 5th or 6th occasion it has let us down at a crucial point. As a matter of habit I always carry the backup GPS (an old Garmin 76) and I put this in the trusty hands of Phillip to call the angles. Halfway down to Milnerton, I realized that there were only two boats in the Spinnaker Class. And we were a very long way in the lead.

The gybe at Milnerton went off smoothly and we settled down for another beam reach to No.2. Things were getting a little wet on board and Andrea (ever the tough guy) was sailing without oilies, but he would be very cold by the time we docked.

The big Class 1 boats were closing on us but we remained in 1st place after rounding No.2 and headed back to Milnerton, with rights on starboard tack. It was very lumpy sailing through the bulk of the fleets backwash with our speed dropping to 6.5 knots at one stage, but we were mainly clipping along at 7.5 knots and somewhere got the speed up to 10,5.

We were still lying 1st at the second Milnerton rounding, but minutes later the leading Class 1 boat (an all carbon 44 footer called "Prodigy" with a swing keel) powered through our lee. All the big boats had reefs in and they were struggling to catch us. Before the No.2 mark, Picasso (Sovereign 54) also passed us, but with a lot of effort.

We kept the No.2 up for the short beat to the finish.

An enjoyable sail, but on a lousy course. The club’s organizational abilities leave much to be desired and I was mortified to hear from the club manager that several members had phoned in saying how much they enjoyed the course. Well, I guess if you are bothered with racing and the main objective is to drink beer and watch the sea sliding past, then this is the course to ask for, but from a tactical perspective, it was terrible.

After packing up the boat, we learned that we would not receive a finishing position as we did not have the requisite 5 starters in the spinnaker Class. I have requested them to give us a finishing position in Class 1, after deducting our 10 minute head start. [Edited later: Having computed the results after allowing for the extra 10 minutes, we came 2nd Class 1 - 90 seconds behind the 1st placed Farr 38, "AL"

RESULTS:

Spinnaker start 17h50
Sail # Class Yacht Skipper Club TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place
SA204 J27 Smack Water Jack Trygve Roberts 0.995 0.936 19 14 24 1 24 24 1 23 59 19 0
SA 3141 First 7.5 Always Well Burger/Thomas 1.01 D N F

30th September, 2006
Winter Series B - Race 4

Race in a nutshell:

Weather Forecast: Partly Cloudy with rain [30%]. Wind North West 15 knots.
Temp 20C

Weather Actual: Partly cloudy, no rain. Wind NW 20 to 25 knots. Temp. 18C
Baro: 0996 hPa

Course: Start No:10 (S) – Landfall (P)- 10 (P)- No.2 (S) – 10 (P) - 2 (P) – No.10 (P)

Seas: Lumpy, steep waves with swell of 2.5m

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, .75oz Mamba Spinnaker

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Andrew James (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Greg Harrowsmith (Bow) Peter Hill (Guest). (Total: 640kg)

Position Line (Class 2): 1st

Position Handicap Class 2 (PHRF): 1st

Position Handicap Class 2 (IRC): 1st

Position Overall PHRF (Class 1&2) : 2nd

Total Entries: 14

Ave Speed: 5.8 kts

Max Speed: 10.4 kts

Distance: 16.1 nm.

Time: 02:51:47

With 3 races and no results in the Winter B Series, it was my turn to be Duty Officer and after all my chirping about missing buoys, courses that are too long, poorly laid start lines etc., I though I would come under a lot of flak if I didn’t get the course right. Initial meeting with the club manager indicated that the missing buoys had not yet been replaced and there appeared to be a shortage of manpower to take the Bridge boat out. So I focused on utilizing buoys that I knew were definitely in place. The result was an excellent course consisting of three windward / leeward loops of varying lengths which seemed to make everyone happy with the possible exception of the sprit boats, which prefer more of a reaching component.

Peter Hill, the owner of the J27 “Hillbilly” phoned me earlier to advise he could not get his crew together and asked for a ride with us, which is how we ended up with 7 crew weighing in at a hefty 640 kgs. Not a good combination for blistering speed in only 15 knots of breeze.

Phillip, who is normally spot on with timing our starts, did not have his watch back from repairs and to compound the problem, I did not want to stray too far from the pin end in the light conditions. The net result is that none of us heard the 5 minute gun or were able to see the flags going up and down. A stand in Race Officer played strictly to the rules unlike our regulkar one and did not transmit the signals over the VHF either. Confusion!

What an uncomfortable feeling not knowing when to start! Eish…….

We were about 30 seconds late, but at least we were at the starboard biased pin end and just to windward of the Farr 38 - “AL” who seemed to have some difficulty sailing through us. We tacked off after about a minute, onto port and headed offshore, slowly building our speed to 6, 2 knots in the lumpy conditions.

Things weren’t looking too shabby after all as we neared the weather mark, we found ourselves in 5th place overall and right up with the Class 1 boats. Our hoists, gybed and strikes went off without a problem and our guest, Peter Hill, showed us some new tricks trimming the spinnaker guy. The multiple short legs would naturally work in our favour with quicker sets and strikes. The game was on!

Our downwind speed was anything but spectacular and the boat felt like it had 640 kgs of rail meat on board. Despite this mass, we seemed to be holding our own amongst the bigger boats.

The breeze was rock steady in direction making for fair racing, but very little opportunity for tacking on headers. One of the Farr 40’s radiod a cautionary through to the fleet about a whale in the vicinity of the weather mark, which we never even had a glimpse of. (Thank Goodness!)

Back at the clubhouse, we were pleased to hear we had sailed into 2nd place overall and 1st in Class 2 – this despite our late start. So, with only one race in the B series having been completed we obviously took 1st place in the series, as well as 1st in the A series and 1st Overall for both Winter Series.

Whilst this sounds marvelous on paper, I should point out that the quality of the competition left much to be desired in most of the races. Add to that the fact that we were probably the only boat that sailed all the races, gave us a fairly easy victory of some 15 points above our nearest rival. Of greater importance is that we have learned to sail consistently and the manner in how we gear the boat through all the wind speeds is starting to pay dividends – especially in the consistency factor.

With Table Bay Week only a few months away and the Cape Doctor already having shown his face in town several times this season, it will be a few months of renewed focus on strong wind boat handling and getting our selected crew up to scratch, for what promises to be a hotly contested event.

RCYC Winter Series B - Race 4
Thanks to CREW: Ron, Emilio, & Ray OOD: Trygve Roberts

West 15 Knots, choppy start 14h00
Sail #
Class Yacht
Skipper Club TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place
SA 630
Farr38 AL
Johan van Rooyen 1.09 15 41 41 1 41 41 1 50 50 1
SA 204
J 27 Smack Water Jack
Trygve Roberts 0.995 15 52 39 1 52 39 1 52 5 2
NAM 10
Farr 40 Alladin
Bjiorn Geiger 1.09 15 42 59 1 42 59 1 52 15 3
SA 3174
X 332 Zebra
Connie Papageorge 1.045 15 51 41 1 51 41 1 56 43 4
SA 3444
Fast 42 Maestro
Roux/van Ass 1.18 15 41 3 1 41 3 1 59 14 5
SA 3141
Beneteau 6.5m Always Well
Burger/Thomas 1.01 15 58 9 1 58 9 1 59 20 6
037
L34 Spectrum
Andy James 1.015 15 58 25 1 58 25 2 0 11 7
SA765
Farr 40 PG Glass Majimoto II
Lindsey Birch 1.13 15 47 19 1 47 19 2 1 16 8
SA 223
Impact Impact
Jackie Brand 0.92 16 13 33 2 13 33 2 2 52 9
SA1730
Muira folding Phantom
T Connell 0.935 16 13 33 2 13 33 2 4 52 10
SA 978
Atlantis 49 Aurora
Mel Hawtrey 1.085 15 55 54 1 55 54 2 5 45 11
SA 2278
Jenneau 36 Sirocco
Pieter Gerber 0.95 16 21 58 2 21 58 2 14 52 12
2676
Bucanneer Let's Go
Duncan Johnson 0.8 16 49 0 2 49 0 2 15 12 13
SA339
Impact Mod Halali
Erich Lehmann 0.95 R T D



Final results Winter Series A & B (Class ll)

WINTER SERIES - class 2 WINTER SERIES "A" Spilhaus RI Race
Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 A total Long Dist
Sail No Yacht Owner/skipper Class Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts
SA204 Smackwater Jack Trygve Roberts J27 1 1 2 2 DNC 33 2 2 5 2 2
SA 3174 Zebra Connie Papageorge X 332 3 3 13 13 DNC 33 7 7 23 13 13
SA 1146 Cathy R Johan Rabie Compass 47 10 10 12 12 DNC 33 3 3 25 DNC 9
SA 223 Impact Jacqui Brand Impact DNC 33 5 5 DNC 33 8 8 46 7 7
SA2676 Lets Go Duncan Johnson Buccaneer 21 21 20 20 DNC 33 12 12 53 RTD 14
010 Lapwing Alan Keen L34 2 2 7 7 DNC 33 DNC 33 42 14 14
44 Hors d' Oeuvre Peter Bam L 26 7 7 DNC 33 DNC 33 4 4 44 DNC 9
SA 3141 Always Well Thomas/Burger First 7.5 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 6 6 72 1 1
13 Ariel Sheriff Saville RCOD 8 8 8 8 DNC 33 DNC 33 49 DNC 9
SA 339 Halali Erich Lehmann Impact 13 13 9 9 DNC 33 RTD 33 55 3 3
78 JML 1 Isivunga L26 9 9 14 14 DNC 33 DNC 33 56 DNC 9
SA 130 Apricot Bat Tromp Muira DNC 33 15 15 DNC 33 11 11 59 6 6
SA702 FTI Flyer Keith Mattison Charger 33 15 15 18 18 DNC 33 DNC 33 66 RTD 14
893 Chen Iain McGuinigan Muira 17 17 19 19 DNC 33 DNC 33 69 5 5
69 Mac A tini Peter Hill L 26 DNC 33 6 6 DNC 33 DNC 33 72 4 4
SA33 Julie III Robin Green Miura DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 10 10 76 RTD 14
37 Spectrum Andy James L34 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 10 10
18 Aquavit Phil Flockton L34 11 11 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 77 18 18
11 Tally Ho John Waller L34 12 12 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 78 15 15
SA 2360 Saoirse Tony Blackwell Atlantis 36 14 14 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 80 DNC 9
Phantom Tom Connell Muira DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 DNC 21
SA 2278 Sirocco Pieter Gerber Jenneau 36 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 RTD 14
SA 961 Morenster Joanne Lambrechts L 34 16 16 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 82 DNC 21
SA 546 Nauti Buoy Theo v d Hoek Petersen 33 18 18 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 84 DNC 9
SA 2996 Reaction Thomas Boecker RCOD 19 19 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 85 DNC 9
SA 1535 Seagull Hennie McLachlan Stadt 34 20 20 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 86 DNC 9
Rhapsody Tom Figl Aldis 39 DNC 33 21 21 DNC 33 DNC 33 87 DNC 21
24 Six Pak Patrick Holloway L 34 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 RTD 33 99 8 8
SA 555 Solitaire Dave Elcock Compass 47 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 8 8
SA2103 Avanti Harry Brehm Vickers 41 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 11 11
SA 704 Freestyle Gary Franklin H 34 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 RTD 14
SA 190 Pure Magic ??? J 27 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 DNC 21
Dapper Joris ??? ??? DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 DNC 21

Winter Series B – Race 3
9th September, 2006 –
“The Agatha Christie Race”

Race in a nutshell:

Total Entries: 21

Max Speed: 8.8 kts

Distance: 14.50 nm.

Time: 03:32.26


Weather Forecast: Overcast - Wind West 10 knots becoming South 15 knots Temp. 13/18C, Baro: 1018hPa, Deep Sea swell: 3.5m SW

Start No:10 (S) – 4 (S) - 8 (S) - Woodbridge (S) – No.10 (S) - Woodbridge (S) - 2 (P) - 10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, BP Floater

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Charles Cosby (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Greg Harrowsmith (Bow), (Total: 510kg)

It would seem that the weather gods, the race officers and now missing buoys have gathered over the past few weeks to totally spoil our winter racing programme.

A month ago we had a chaotic start line, with the Class 1 and 2 boats heading off in opposing directions with the resultant chaos that was bound to happen, but at least we got a set of race results.

A week later we had a very long course set by a very optimistic race officer which resulted in not a single boat making the cut-off time.

So on Friday, Ron asked me to stand in as duty officer and I took the trouble to carefully check the forecast on Saturday morning, setting a course which would give us a good windward/leeward option and an opportunity to shorten if we needed to.

The only problem was when the leading boat (Golf & Wine) got to the Woodbridge mark it was not there! So the fleet was recalled back to the start area. Half the fleet decided that the lure of the rugby was more exciting than the racing and high tailed back to the club, leaving maybe 10 boats for the restart.

By the time we got back there, the 10 knot westerly had all but died, but Ron quickly threw together a short race with 3 loops around Paarden Island buoy. The fleet got off the line in a whisper of southerly, except for Zebra which found its own private channel of breeze and saw them at the front of the fleet. As for me, well….we were right at the back in an excellent hole just big enough to keep us totally stationary, but eventually we got Smackwater Jack out of the Table Bay doldrums and onto the task of chasing the fleet down.

And then another call from the bridge as we were rapidly closing on the point where the chart plotter told me the mark is supposed to be, telling us that this mark too, was not in the water, but high and dry on the ‘dolosse’ – And that was the end of racing for the day.

Allrightythen!!! So who dunnit?

A combination of a spring high tide and a big swell? Or is there some guy out there poaching marker buoys?
What an unfortunate series of events. It seems as we fix the one problem, another pops out elsewhere.

Despite all the above shenanigans, we are still holding on to our favourite spot....we battle the big boats, race officers, winter weather, too much wind, too little wind, kelp, whales, currents - and now to add to that list - missing buoys! - one has to admit - this is one crazy sport!

WINTER SERIES OVERALL RESULTS
Winter Series A Spilhaus Robben Island Race
Race 1 Race 2 Race 4 TOTAL Long Distance (counts double) CUM
Sail No Yacht Owner/skipper Class Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts PTS
SA204 Smackwater Jack Trygve Roberts J27 1 1 2 2 2 2 5 2 2 2 2 9
SA 3113 Golf & Wine JJ Provoyeur Farr 395 6 6 3 3 5 5 14 1 1 1 1 16
SA 1146 Cathy R Johan Rabie Compass 47 10 10 12 12 3 3 25 DNC 9 DNC 9 43
SA 1278 Wallbanger Brian Gardener Simonis 35 4 4 1 1 1 1 6 DNC 21 DNC 21 48
SA 3174 Zebra Connie Papageorge X 332 3 3 13 13 7 7 23 13 13 13 13 49
SA 223 Impact Jacqui Brand Impact DNC 33 5 5 8 8 46 7 7 7 7 60
SA 765 Maji Moto Lindsey Birch Farr 40 5 5 10 10 DNC 33 48 6 6 6 6 60
SA 339 Halali Erich Lehmann Impact 13 13 9 9 RTD 33 55 3 3 3 3 61
44 Hors d' Oeuvre Peter Bam L 26 7 7 DNC 33 4 4 44 DNC 9 DNC 9 62
13 Ariel Sheriff Saville RCOD 8 8 8 8 DNC 33 49 DNC 9 DNC 9 67
010 Lapwing Alan Keen L34 2 2 7 7 DNC 33 42 14 14 14 14 70
SA 130 Apricot Bat Tromp Muira DNC 33 15 15 11 11 59 6 6 6 6 71
78 JML 1 Isivunga L26 9 9 14 14 DNC 33 56 DNC 9 DNC 9 74
SA 3141 Always Well Thomas/Burger First 7.5 DNC 33 DNC 33 6 6 72 1 1 1 1 74
SA 2126 Monkies in the Mist Bernard Diebold Jaz 30 DNS 30 16 16 9 9 55 12 12 12 12 79
893 Chen Iain McGuinigan Muira 17 17 19 19 DNC 33 69 5 5 5 5 79
69 Mac A tini Peter Hill L 26 DNC 33 6 6 DNC 33 72 4 4 4 4 80
SA 2360 Saoirse Tony Blackwell Atlantis 36 14 14 DNC 33 DNC 33 80 0 0 80
SA2676 Lets Go Duncan Johnson Buccaneer 21 21 20 20 12 12 53 RTD 14 RTD 14 81
SA702 FTI Flyer Keith Mattison Charger 33 15 15 18 18 DNC 33 66 RTD 14 RTD 14 94
NAM 10 Aladdin Bjiorn Geiger Farr 40 DNC 33 11 DNC 33 66 16 16 16 16 98
SA 978 Aurora Mel Hawtrey Atlantis 49 DNS 30 17 17 DNC 33 80 9 9 9 9 98
SA 546 Nauti Buoy Theo v d Hoek Petersen 33 18 18 DNC 33 DNC 33 84 DNC 9 DNC 9 102
SA 2996 Reaction Thomas Boecker RCOD 19 19 DNC 33 DNC 33 85 DNC 9 DNC 9 103
SA 18881 Hi Fidelity DeVilliers/Sindler Welbourn 46 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 2 2 2 2 103
SA33 Julie III Robin Green Miura DNC 33 DNC 33 10 10 76 RTD 14 RTD 14 104
SA 1535 Seagull Hennie McLachlan Stadt 34 20 20 DNC 33 DNC 33 86 DNC 9 DNC 9 104
SA 2027 Thunderchild Rhet Goldswain Lavarnos 53 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 3 3 3 3 105
USA 43434 Spilhaus III Teddy Kuttel Swede 55 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 4 4 4 4 107
11 Tally Ho John Waller L34 12 12 DNC 33 DNC 33 78 15 15 15 15 108
SA2773 Naledi Felix Scheder-Bieschin J120 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 5 5 5 5 109
SA2954 Sheshisa Lood Rabie Bavaria Match 38 DNC 33 4 4 DNC 33 70 DNC 21 DNC 21 112
18 Aquavit Phil Flockton L34 11 11 DNC 33 DNC 33 77 18 18 18 18 113
SA 1178 Touch n' Go Dave Smith Lightwave 395 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 7 7 7 7 113
24 Six Pak Patrick Holloway L 34 DNC 33 DNC 33 RTD 33 99 8 8 8 8 115
SA 555 Solitaire Dave Elcock Compass 47 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 8 8 8 8 115
37 Spectrum Andy James L34 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 10 10 10 10 119
SA2103 Avanti Harry Brehm Vickers 41 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 11 11 11 11 121
SA 961 Morenster Joanne Lambrechts L 34 16 16 DNC 33 DNC 33 82 DNC 21 DNC 21 124
SA 704 Freestyle Gary Franklin H 34 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 RTD 14 RTD 14 127
SA 2278 Sirocco Pieter Gerber Jenneau 36 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 RTD 14 RTD 14 127
Rhapsody Tom Figl Aldis 39 DNC 33 21 21 DNC 33 87 DNC 21 DNC 21 129
SA1254 Palluci Syd Kaye Simonis 35 DNC 33 DNC 33 DNC 33 99 17 17 17 17 133

The scenic and futile route to Barker Rock….

Race Report: Winter Series B. Race 1 - 12th August, 2006

Race in a nutshell:

Position (PHRF): RTD

Total Entries: 33 (All RTD or DNF)

Ave Speed: 2.8 kts
Max Speed: 7.7 kts
Distance: 14.89 nm.
Time: 03:36.00


Weather Forecast: Overcast - Wind North West 10 knots Temp. 10/15C, Baro: 1016hPa, Deep Sea swell: 5.0m SW

Weather Actual: Wind was 5 knots NW . The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Start No:10 (S) – Barker Rock (P) – No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, (and 5hp Yamaha outboard !)

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow), (Total: 510kg)

It didn't take much for the rapid onset of seasickness with a lumpy sea pushing in behind 5 meter swells, speckled with strings of kelp and a paltry whisper of north wester. Add to that rocking, yawing and rolling to the sound of slatting kevlar on the mast. Not a good recipe, I tell you.....not good at all. And then I still choose to tell my late mom's story of when we used to feel car sick.

"Imagine a two foot long piece of rough brown string attached to a sliver of raw pork fat being dropped down your throat and as you swallow, someone yanks it out by the string"

That one got Rodney green around the gills. But let's get back to basics in terms of race planning.

Here is some "high tech" Maths coming up for Race Officers, who make course mistakes......

OK. Let's see. No. 10 Bouy to Barker Rock is about 5 miles. So let's double that as it will be upwind, which makes it 10 miles and add another 5 miles for the return leg. That's 15 nautical miles. The wind speed is 5 knots which will give an average VMG of around 3 knots. Three goes into fifteen 5 times, which means it will take 5 hours to complete the race. Now how simple is that folks?


But hang on, we only have three and a half hours to race? So what?

Take 30 odd boats with around six people per boat equates to roughly 180 very unhappy and slightly seasick sailors who sat out in those lumpy conditions all afternoon with not a single boat being able to finish within the time limit.

A few weeks ago I asked some serious questions about having one start for two fleets sailing off to different marks of the course (and the resultant chaos on the start line) during the Spilhaus Robben Island Race. Lo and behold, if we don't make another basic course mistake two weeks later. Come on Race Officers, this is not cool. One of your responsibilities is to select a course appropriate to the conditions. If you have any doubt about the likelihood of your chosen course being a success, rather just choose a course off the course card.

I would like to suggest that Ron Keytel (the club sailing manager) chooses the course for the day. He is in the best position to make the correct decisions and can "refer" to the Officer of the Day if he so chooses. This will greatly eliminate mistakes such as have happened over the last few races at RCYC.

Two seasons ago I spent a lot of time with Alan Keen setting up a course card for RCYC so that our fleet could always race on proper courses. The idea behind this was to take the guess work out of course selection. Each wind direction is catered for as well as wind strengths. If you see the breeze is light, just keep the fleet close inshore where one has the ability to shorten. The courses also cater for proper windward leeward courses where tacking and gybing is included (and rightly so in terms of developing our skills as competent racing skippers/crews).

The triangular reaching courses (more commonly referred to as soldiers courses) do very little to improve our skills and few opportunities arise to employ tactics. In short, we shouldn't really be sailing them - unless of course we are too terrified to tack and gybe?

Enough whinging and back to the racing.

Low wind speeds and big swells can only mean one thing on our boat. Within a few minutes the first crew member started yawning. Uh-Oh. ……and we hadn't even started yet! Even punching the course into the chart plotter had my stomach lurching. We opted for a pin end start and managed to find a hole next to Golf & Wine and made a good, clean getaway. We found ourselves lying 2nd overall abeam Mouille Point, but it wasn't going to last long. One of the Farr 40's got past us and then the new J27 "Pure Magic" with only three people on board, found some nice boat speed and gradually overhauled us abeam Clifton. Pretty good considering it was their first race. Just before Barker Rock the Jaz 30 also passed us, by which stage we were all yawning almost continuously. Got to hate that old mal-de-mer !!

At that stage Golf & Wine, with a plethora of rock stars on board, were doing less than 4 knots and barely had enough breeze to fill their kite. We only had 45 minutes to get around the rock and all the way back to the finish. It would simply not be possible, so we retired and gratefully got the donkey on the go, doing a pleasant 5.2 knots and being helped along by the big swells. We noted that Golf and Wine were struggling to keep up with us and calculated that they would be very lucky to get a finish in the light breeze. They missed the finish gun by about 3 minutes and were the only boat that had even the remotest chance of doing so.

OK Everybody. Let's learn from these mistakes and make sure they don't happen again. Those boats that rounded Barker Rock will also testify as to the dangers of using that as a mark in light winds and big swell. Pretty scary stuff and not sensible to send a fleet into such an obviously dangerous place.

With Lipton Cup taking place at RCYC over the next few weeks, Smackwater Jack will not be doing much racing till mid September, but I will be serving on the Lipton protest panel and hopefully this will be a good opportunity for me to brush up on the racing rules again.

29th July, 2006
SPILHAUS ROBBEN ISLAND RACE

Race in a nutshell:

Position (PHRF): 2nd
Position Line Class 2 : 2nd
Total Entries: 33

Ave Speed: 3.4 kts
Max Speed: 7.5 kts
Distance: 19.2 nm.
Time: 05:02.47


Weather Forecast: Overcast - Wind North West 12 knots Temp. 12/17C, Baro: 1020hPa, Deep Sea swell: 2.5m SW

Weather Actual: Wind was 2 to 8 knots NW . The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Start No:10 (S) – Robben Island (S ) – No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, and Quantum Red Reacher, .75 MTN Spinnaker; .50 Quantum BP spinnaker.

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Greg Harrowsmith (Main), Waldo Zevenster (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Chris Miller (Bow), (Total: 500kg)

Thirty three yachts jostled around near the start line waiting for the 1200 start. I often wonder we try to reinvent the wheel and surely there must have been many sailors asking the same questions that I was. Why have two separate courses for Classes 1 & 2?

Why then have one start for all, when there are two different courses heading off in opposing directions?

Why not have started the Class 2 boats 5 minutes earlier or 5 minutes later?

Whoever was responsible for setting this course, just didn’t think things through properly. Luckily the breeze was light. I counted at least three collisions during the start. Now imagine if there was a 20 knot North Wester blowing??!! Having the noon gun thud over the bay at one second after the start lent even more confusion and drama to the many shouts of STARBOARD!

I mention these gory details for those that set the courses to understand the problems that are created by not thinking everything through carefully. There must be collectively about 4 million years of experience at RCYC, so we really should not be making basic errors like this, as JJ so eloquently mentioned at prize-giving later. OK, enough of that.

As things turned out, the longer Class 1 route around the island via the Blouberg mark, turned out to be much faster than the shorter Class 2 route, but that would have been anyone's guess. The weather was essentially fantastic, considering it is mid winter, but probably a little too light for most of us. Those that could concentrate would be the one's who would make the gains.

Getting back to the nitty gritty stuff...... Back at the start line my assessment was to avoid the obvious bun fight that would take place at the No.10 mark, so we hung back on a reaching course into the start area, hoping that a gap would open up for us - and it did - in the form of the elegant, long, Swede 55 making a nice clean open channel through the fleet for us. So we sheeted in and stuck on their transom, getting a pin end start about two seconds after the gun and going at a reasonable speed. And then the problems started.

All the Class 1 boats wanted to tack onto port to get across to Blouberg, whilst all the Class 2 boats wanted to carry on straight. Ah, surely a recipe for big trouble.

The Swede 55 - "Spilhaus lll" went into a tack directly in front of us and we immediately called for them not to tack in our water. This was followed by a call of "We are only luffing. Weather boat must keep clear" - which we did. Yeah right! Why would a yacht want to luff two seconds after the start when it is holding pole position?

Two seconds later, The Farr 395 - "Golf and Wine" skippered by the well known ‘Round the World’ sailor, JJ Provoyeur, came steaming across on port tack, unable to cross ahead of us. We called "Starboard!" and held our (paltry 27 foot of) ground, forcing JJ to tack. With stylish Gallic temper and vocabulary, JJ stripped his box with several very loud “F*CK OFF” calls shouted at us, in his utter frustration of having to bear off and gybe around to go behind us. But at least, he did tack away, which is more than what some skippers do. Still, it brought home my comments about big boat bullying posted on the club and SAS websites only days earlier. We stayed calm and held our course. What was he thinking?

I caught up with JJ later in the pub. I had a whole armoury of weapons ready for him. The biggest of which was that I needed to make an arrangement to do a boat review on his lovely new yacht for Sailing Magazine. So that was my opening line. His jaw went slack. Speechless! Then a weak smile….Then an apology. Then an explanation, which I was very interested to hear. He said that another Class 1 boat ‘messed him around’ on the start line, so when we appeared in his path on starboard, he completely lost his temper. (Huh??!!) He also said that besides the fact that we were technically in the right (I liked that expression!), he felt that I should have waved him through and allowed him to win Class 1 (which he did anyway) and we could then have proceeded unfettered to lead Class 2…..This is the kind of thinking at RCYC, which I am trying to get unbundled. Why on earth should a smaller starboard tacker, duck behind a big port tacker (unless the smaller boat tactically wants to do that)? This story too, will go public today. I don’t really care how good, or how famous, or celebrated these guys are. It is wrong. Period!

Today will also mark the unveiling of a new page on this website, which I will call the ‘Hall of Shame’ – all these incidents will be recorded here for the world to see. Anyone who experiences this same type of big boat bullying is welcome to send me the brief details for publication. Let the crusade begin.


Out of the melee, the leaders eventually emerged, with us leading the Class 2 boats out of the bay, and Hifidelity doing the honours in Class 1. As the Class 2 boats were getting away, a ship exited the harbour, giving one long, single blast on it's horn (I am turning to starboard). That sounded a bit odd to me, as it was away from the normal shipping channel, but we had tacked onto port to keep out of its way. A few seconds later, it made a definite turn to starboard, putting us right in its path, so we tacked back onto starboard. "Always Well", the First 7.5, was not so lucky (that's what I thought at the time) and the ship took them further out into the bay, preventing a tack. When they came back over towards Green Point, they had drawn level with us. We hugged the shoreline, where the big problem was a lot of kelp floating around. And there was lots of it! In one area there was more kelp than open water and we sailed right through that lot which gave us some anxious moments. I had two of my crew members on full time 'kelp watch'. The wind was getting ever lighter and our boat speed was down to 2 knots at one stage. Eventually we committed and went for the long port tack across towards the island, but it was an agonizingly slow sail. Up ahead, far on the horizon, the leading Class 1 boats were already clearing the southern end of Robben Island. They must have had much better breeze on that side. Meanwhile, "Always Well" had found a streak of breeze and sailed far ahead of us. They have also recently had a major rating reduction, moving them out of Class 1 and into Class 2. They also have two very experienced skippers on board in the form of Ralph Thomas and Lance Burger – the latter being a J22 exponent.

Later the breeze filled in to about 7 or 8 knots and we were able to get the boat going faster. On the western side of the island, we almost sailed into a whale and were forced to do an emergency tack back into that ugly shore break. Actually it was scary, not ugly - watching those huge tubes of heavy salt water smashing down onto the shore and wondering how long our little boat would last in that lot, but all the wrecks littering that western shoreline bear mute testimony to how powerful those waves really are.

Along the back of the island, we reeled "Always Well" in and managed to get a 200m lead over them, but I knew with their down wind speed, it was not a big enough lead. It was very interesting to see the different performance of the modern and older (us) designs. The First 7.5 with its non overlapping headsail, was pointing about 10 degrees higher than us. With the big No.1 Genoa on our boat, we sailed fat and free and were doing at least a knot and a half faster than the Beneteau. It once again proved my theory that speed is always better than height.
As we bore off onto the eastern shore of the island we put a spinnaker up, only to see a 2 meter tear across the middle, necessitating a change to a different kite, but we were barely managing 5.5 knots even with a high heading, so we did another spinnaker change, going for our lightest, biggest kite. "Always Well" went far over towards the beach, whilst we gybed at the orange ship and kept watching our VMG and time to go on the plotter. The starboard gybe was producing reasonable speed, but the port gybe was terrible for us. On this downwind leg, "Always Well" killed us, taking 10 minutes out of us and eliminating the 200m lead we had over them. With Greg watching the time to go vs. the time left to cut-off, we religiously worked the gibing angles to the finish, but sailing deep was simply out of the question. The RC had set a cut off time of 1700 and it looked like we would score a DNF by a mere two and a half minutes after a five hour race, but to our absolute relief, they gave us a hooter. The cut-off time had been extended, but nearly half the Class 2 fleet had retired without hope of making it back to port before nightfall.

We had caught up to a few of the Class 1 boats, but our effort was only good enough for 2nd place. Nonetheless, a thoroughly enjoyable race and clearly popular, judging by the volume of entries. This is a double scoring race for the overall winter series scores, so we will still be the overall point’s leaders going into the second half of the season.

Class 2 Course: 10, RRI (s) 10 Start 12h00 NW 10 Knots, calm

Sail # Class Yacht Skipper TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place

SA 3141 Beneteau 6.5m Always Well Burger/Thomas 1.01 16 52 55 4 52 55 4 55 51 1
SA 204 J 27 Smack Water Jack Trygve Roberts 0.995 17 2 47 5 2 47 5 1 16 2
SA339 Impact Mod Halali Erich Lehmann 0.95 17 17 12 5 17 12 5 1 20 3
069 L 26 Mac A Tini Peter Hill 0.955 17 22 53 5 22 53 5 8 21 4
893 Muira Chen Iain McGuigan 0.935 17 39 51 5 39 51 5 17 46 5
SA 130 Muira Apricot Bat Tromp 0.935 17 49 0 5 49 0 5 26 19 6
SA 223 Impact Impact Jackie Brand 0.92 17 58 1 5 58 1 5 29 23 7
SA555 Compass 47 Solitaire Dave Elcock 1.01 17 37 43 5 37 43 5 41 5 8 SA 33 Miura Julie III R Green 0.935 R T D
SA 702 Charger 33 FTI Flyer Keith Mattison 0.995 R T D
2676 Bucanneer Let's Go Duncan Johnson 0.8 R T D
SA 704 H 34 Freestyle Gary Franklin 0.945 R T D
SA 2278 Jenneau 36 Sirocco Pieter Gerber 0.95 R T D

Class 1 Course: 10, BB, RRI (s) BB, 10 Start 12h00 NW 10 Knots, calm

Sail # Class Yacht Skipper TCF Finished Elapsed Corr. Place
SA 3113 Farr 395 Golf & Wine JJ Provoyeur 1.19 15 34 7 3 34 7 4 14 48 1
SA 18881 Welbourn 46 Hi Fildelity
DeVilliers/Sindler 1.3 15 19 20 3 19 20 4 19 8 2
SA 2027 Lavanos 53 Thunderchild R Goldswain 1.26 15 26 23 3 26 23 4 20 2 3
USA43434 Swede 55 Spilhaus III Ted Kuttel 1.125 16 1 54 4 1 54 4 32 8 4
SA 2773 J 120 Naledi F Schneiner Biessen 1.155 16 2 0 4 2 0 4 39 31 5
SA765 Farr 40 PG Glass Majimoto II
Lindsey Birch 1.13 16 9 30 4 9 30 4 41 56 6
SA 1178 Lightwave 395 Touch n Go
Dave Smith 1.08 16 22 53 4 22 53 4 43 55 7
024 L34 Six Pak/WWB P Holloway 1.015 16 41 56 4 41 56 4 46 10 8
SA 978 Atlantis 49 Aurora Mel Hawtrey 1.085 16 27 55 4 27 55 4 50 41 9
037 L34 Spectrum Andy James 1.015 16 47 5 4 47 5 4 51 23 10
SA 2103 Vicker 41 Avanti Harry Brehm 1.05 16 39 11 4 39 11 4 53 8 11
SA 2127 Jaz 30 Monkies in the Mist
Bernard Diebold 1.14 16 17 27 4 17 27 4 53 29 12
SA 3174 X 332 Zebra Connie Papageorge 1.045 16 42 5 4 42 5 4 54 47 13
010 L34 Lapwing Alan Keen 1.015 16 53 10 4 53 10 4 57 34 14
011 L34 Tally Ho John Waller 1.015 16 57 15 4 57 15 5 1 43 15
NAM 10 Farr 40 Alladin Bjiorn Geiger 1.09 16 38 50 4 38 50 5 3 56 16
SA 1245 Simonis 35 mod Pallucci Syd Kaye 1.08 16 47 38 4 47 38 5 10 38 17
018 L34 Aquavit Phil Flockton 1.015 17 13 54 5 13 54 5 18 37 18
SA 2332 Hobie 33 Quicksilver Mike Klostermann 1.085 16 55 19 4 55 19 5 20 25 19
SA 2922 Scape 39 Set Sea G Davis 1.35 16 5 27 4 5 27 5 31 22 20

2006 WINTER SERIES A- FINAL RESULTS

Winter Series A - Score sheet

Sail No Class Yacht Owner/skipper Race 1 Race 2 Race 4 Final points Position Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts

SA204 J27 Smackwater Jack Trygve Roberts 1 1 2 2 2 2 5 1
SA 1278 Simonis 35 Wallbanger Brian Gardener 4 4 1 1 1 1 6 2
SA 3113 Farr 395 Golf & Wine JJ Provoyeur 6 6 3 3 5 5 14 3
SA 3174 X 332 Zebra Connie Papageorge 3 3 13 13 7 7 23 4
SA 1146 Compass 47 Cathy R Johan Rabie 10 10 12 12 3 3 25 5
010 L34 Lapwing Alan Keen 2 2 7 7 DNC 33 42 6
69 L 26 Mac A tini Peter Hill DNS 33 6 6 4 4 43 7
SA 223 Impact Impact Jacqui Brand DNS 33 5 5 8 8 46 8
SA 765 Farr 40 Maji Moto Lindsey Birch 5 5 10 10 RTD 33 48 9
13 RCOD Ariel Sheriff Saville 8 8 8 8 DNC 33 49 10
SA2676 Buccaneer Lets Go Duncan Johnson 21 21 20 20 12 12 53 11
SA 339 Impact Halali Erich Lehmann 13 13 9 9 RTD 33 55 12
78 L26 JML 1 Isivunga 9 9 14 14 DNC 33 56 13
SA 2126 Jaz 30 Monkies in the Mist
Bernard Diebold DNS 33 16 16 9 9 58 14
SA 130 Muira Apricot Bat Tromp DNS 33 15 15 11 11 59 15
SA702 Charger 33 FTI Flyer Keith Mattison 15 15 18 18 DNC 33 66 16
893 Muira Chen Iain McGuinigan 17 17 19 19 DNC 33 69 17
SA2954 Bavaria Match 38 Sheshisa
Lood Rabie DNS 33 4 4 DNC 33 70 18 SA 3141 First 7.5 Always Well
Thomas/Burger DNS 33 DNS 33 6 6 72 19
44 L 26 Hors d' Oeuvre Peter Bam 7 7 DNS 33 DNC 33 73 20
SA33 Miura Julie III Robin Green DNS 33 DNS 33 10 10 76 21
NAM 10 Farr 40 Aladdin Bjiorn Geiger DNS 33 11 11 DNC 33 77 22
18 L34 Aquavit Phil Flockton 11 11 DNS 33 DNC 33 77 22
11 L34 Tally Ho John Waller 12 12 DNS 33 DNC 33 78 24
SA 2360 Atlantis 36 Saoirse
Tony Blackwell 14 14 DNS 33 DNC 33 80 25
SA 961 L 34 Morenster Joanne Lambrechts 16 16 DNS 33 DNC 33 82 26
SA 978 Atlantis 49 Aurora Mel Hawtrey DNS 33 17 17 DNC 33 83 27
SA 546 Petersen 33 Nauti Buoy
Theo v d Hoek 18 18 DNS 33 DNC 33 84 28
SA 2996 RCOD Reaction Thomas Boecker 19 19 DNS 33 DNC 33 85 29
SA 1535 Stadt 34 Seagull Hennie McLachlan 20 20 DNS 33 DNC 33 86 30
Aldis 39 Rhapsody Tom Figl DNS 33 21 21 DNC 33 87 31
24 L 34 Six Pak Patrick Holloway DNS 33 DNS 33 RTD 33 99 32

IRC Results for Winter Series A (4 races):

Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Cum

J 27 Smack Water Jack 1 2 0 1 4
Farr 395 Golf & Wine 4 1 0 2 7
L34 Lapwing 2 3 0 5 10
L26 Hors d'Oeuvre 3 4 0 5 12
First Class 7.5 Always Well 5 5 0 3 13

8th July, 2006
WINTER SERIES A – RACE 4

Race in a nutshell:
Position (IRC): 1st
Position (PHRF): 2nd
Position Line Classes 1 & 2 : 4th
Total Entries: 14

Ave Speed: 6.1 kts
Max Speed: 12.5 kts
Distance: 7.98nm.
Time: 01:15.01


Weather Forecast: Rain 60%. Wind South 22 knots Temp. 10/13C, Baro: 1021hPa, Deep Sea swell: 6.5m SSW

Weather Actual: Wind was South/South East/South West/North West/North 5 to 35 knots . The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P ) – Milnerton (P) – No.8 (P) – Paarden Island (P ) – No.8 (P) - No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.3 Genoa, and Quantum Red Reacher.

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Charles Crossley (Main), Waldo Zevenster (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Greg Harrowsmith (Bow), (Total: 510kg)

This is the forecast I stared glumly at on Saturday morning:

VERY COLD, WET AND WINDY CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OVER THE WESTERN AREAS OF WESTERN AND NORTHERN CAPE PROVINCES WITH SNOWFALLS LIKELY THIS EVENING ON THE HIGH GROUND AREAS.
HEAVY FALLS OF RAIN ARE LIKELY IN PLACES NEAR THE MOUNTAINS OF THE WESTERN CAPE PROVINCE SPREADING TO THE SOUTH COAST ON SATURDAY. GALE FORCE WESTERLY WINDS WILL DEVELOP IN PLACES SOUTH OF CAPE POINT WITH WAVE HEIGHTS IN EXCESS OF 5M SOUTH OF CAPE COLUMBINE.

Land Forecast.......

Forecast: Saturday, 22 July 2006

Min: 10°C Max: 13°C
Weather: Cloudy periods, morning showers (60%)
Wind: fresh south-easterly
Sunrise: 07:45 Sunset: 17:59

Madness! That’s what I thought standing next to Smackwater Jack as a ferocious gust of wind belted down Table Mountain, shrieking through the rigging and lifting spray off the water…… Are they going to send us out in this?

Two minutes later it was all quiet and pleasant with a 10 knot south easterly. I knew it would be a difficult race – especially with a 6.5m swell in the forecast. Ah, the rigours of winter sailing.

We had a slender 2 point lead over the 2nd placed boat – Wallbanger (Simonis 35 modified) and this sort of weather would definitely suit them. We would have to dig deep into our wet and soggy minds to find the magic to beat the big boats.

We opted, as usual, for a full main, having learned so painfully in Table Bay Week that a reefed main just doesn’t work on a J27. The moment we turned the corner beyond the breakwater, and without much debate, hauled the No.3 on deck. The sea was lumpy and there were some huge switches and gust variances to worry about. So, which spinnaker to select? Watching the heavy, switchy gusts, I thought we would be best off with our smallest kite – the red reacher.
The wind was predominantly southerly, which indicated we would easily lay the Paarden Island mark on one tack. Remarkably most boats congregated up at the wall end for the pre start period, whilst we had the pin end relatively to ourselves. A good start, going fast, on the line, on the gun, and we quickly got our boat speed up to 6.5 knots and holding our own with the bigger Class 1 boats, but essentially we were just sailing on the jib – the main was mainly flogging – traveler all the way down, kicker off, backstay on max, outhaul on max, Cunningham on max. The wind was horrible – and we were getting plenty of white water on board as well. With an ambient temperature of 13C, we were already feeling the cold.

We rounded 4th and settled down to test the wind strength before rushing into a spinnaker set. After about a minute we went for a hoist. No problems and we started to catch the bigger boats ahead that had no spinnakers up. We only had one strong gust on this leg, which had the log at 12,5 knots – but the breeze felt surprisingly gentle compared to the thrashing we got on the upwind leg.

Huge waves were crashing down onto the beach as we did an early, conservative strike in preparation for the long fetch to No.8. We had moved into 3rd place with the Farr 395 – Golf & Wine and the Simonis 35 – Wallbanger, still ahead of us. We were easily the Class 2 leaders. But this race was about staying with the big boys – and they were smoking in the rough water and strong breeze. We got ourselves focused on boat speed and were finally happy when the log showed 7,8 knots. The heading was just a few degrees shy of a beat.

Chasing us down from behind was the Farr 40 – Majimoto and the Compass 47 – CathyR. They were probably doing a fraction of a knot better than us and it took them the entire leg to close the gap. I can only imagine the frustration on those boats. The Farr 40 made a half hearted attempt at getting through to windward of us, but we responded immediately with a strong luff, which forced him to leeward. By the time we got near the mark, we had an inside overlap and called for water, which was almost unnecessary as the two bigger boast had fallen well off to leeward.

We rounded and tacked immediately to pick up the lift on starboard tack, whilst the two big boats continued on port towards the wall. This would be the right tactic if the wind was south east, but it was south, and they both lost out badly, allowing us a clean beat up to Paarden Island.

There wasn’t enough height to lay the mark on one tack and we were falling off quite badly, mainly due to sailing with almost no mainsail sheeted, but we were going fast with a solid 6,4 knots on the log. The wind had cranked up a notch and we were being periodically flattened and then just as quickly dumped to windward with the crew getting a waist deep rinse.

The 2nd placed Class 2 boat. – an L34 called “Sixpack” – was also gaining on us. When we put our tack in to get onto port for height, Sixpack was coming up fast on starboard, so I called for sheets to be eased and we sailed lower to clear their transom. Once on the starboard layline, we tacked back for the final run in to the mark. At the same time Sixpack had tacked onto the port layline and even a moron could see we were on a collision course. They held their course, despite my calls of “STARBOARD”

Their skipper looked me in the eyes. We were four boat lengths from the mark. I must have called STARBOARD! At least 10 times and still they kept coming. Within the two boat length circle and as we were about to T bone them, I crash tacked onto port to avoid a collision. I called PROTEST really loudly about four of five times, but Sixpack sailed round the mark and proceeded to get their pole up for a spinnaker hoist. In my haste to pull out the protest flag on the back stay, I ripped it in two (not that it took much effort, as it lives there permanently and was fairly tired from UV exposure.)We had lost almost a minute during this episode. I kept on calling to them (vociferously might be an appropriate word) to do their penalty turns, but we were steadfastly ignored. Up went their kite, but in their intense focus on sailing without taking even that most basic of rules (port/starboard) into consideration, they had failed to notice that the wind angle was beam on and they could not hold their course. With the arrival of the next gust, they broached and lost all the illegal advantage they had gained at the top mark. We overtook them quickly doing a comfortable two sail reach and they were unable to close the gap on us again by the finish. So, had justice been served? No – not in my opinion.

To say I was upset, might be an understatement. I resolved to lodge a protest as soon as we docked. It is not right to let skippers get away with this sort of behavior. At RCYC, there is a group of skippers, who apply the rule (definitely not in the ISAF Rule Book) which overrides all the other sailing rules: MY BOAT IS BIGGER THAN YOURS SO I DON’T CARE IF YOU ARE ON STARBOARD; OR WITHIN THE 2 BOAT LENGTH CIRCLE. MOVE OUT THE WAY, SMALL FRY!

Back at the clubhouse, after finding a protest form (not without some effort I might add) and completing it, I lodged the protest within the time frame permitted. The club doesn’t really encourage protests during normal club events and as a consequence it could be several weeks before a protest is heard and justice is served. My last protest took five weeks to be heard. Yes, it did!

Anyway…….I digress……We came 2nd in this race, to Wallbanger, which gave us a one point victory for the overall prize in the combined fleets PHRF as well as IRC. The guys from Wallbanger came over to congratulate us, which I thought was very nice of them. They have lifted their game up considerably this season and have been putting up consistently good performances. We enjoyed a few beers and everyone started relaxing after the day’s dramas.

As I was leaving the pub, a chap stood up and asked me a few questions. The conversation went something like this: I have called him SP. It would not be remiss to mention that I don't know this guy from a bar of soap - maybe 'roll of toilet paper' might be more appropriate.

SP: "Hey! Have you calmed down yet?"

TR: "No. Actually I haven't. Are you the skipper of Six-pack?"

SP: "No. I’m a crew member. Listen - it was bullshit you shouting at us like that"

TR: "What you guys did was pathetically irresponsible and a blatant disregard of the rules. You deserved to be shouted at"

SP: "Ja, but you could have taken some other course of action. It wasn't necessary for you to have tacked"

TR: "Huh???? I can’t believe what I’m hearing!! Listen. I'm not going to discuss anything further with you. You obviously know f*ck-all about sailing or the rules. I'll see you in the protest room"

Then I walked out and left those guys bristling. Quite extraordinary the way they were thinking that maybe we should have just ducked their transom as an "alternative" and then done a gybe and another tack to re round the mark. Ja well, no fine! I can see this protest is going to get really ugly. They might counter protest me for using bad language. My defense will be that any human being will react like that under those circumstances. Like a taxi cutting you off. You just can't help it, when you and your crew’s lives are under threat.

Oh well…..Cest La Vie……I guess we will see what the future holds all in good time.

This Saturday we are doing the Round Robben Island race. The forecast looks pretty good at this stage. This race will count to wards the overall winter series scores and count double points. Until then - Sail safe and watch out for port tackers who think they are on starboard.

Speaking of rules, the previous week, whilst heading upwind on starboard tack, we had another L34 bearing down on us still completing their downwind leg (they were also on starboard). Once again, this boat made no effort to keep clear and we had to take evasive action to avoid a collision. As the two boats passed each other, their skipper yelled at me: “Can’t you see we are on starboard?”

Either this skipper has never heard of the ‘two boats on same tack, weather boat keeps clear’ rule, or he was genuinely temporarily confused. I am hoping it was the latter and that he crawled with embarrassment when he realized we were actually in the right.

I have a problem with the lack of good sportsmanship found in clubs these days (probably those days too). When the heat of battle is done and the dust has settled, and you know you are wrong, be man enough to walk over to your competitor, apologize and buy him a drink. Once done, that’s the end of the problem.

We play with expensive toys out there. Our lives cannot be measured in terms of value. Why then, are some skippers willing to risk both those things, to gain a place in a race. What has happened to our value system where good sportsmanship and seamanship are more important than anything else? More importantly, what can we do to change it?

STOP PRESS: I have just seen the results posted on the RCYC website and have noted (with mixed feelings) that Sixpack have retired from this race. Finally they did something smart!

A pity really - I was so looking forward to that confrontation.

Results:

Start 14h00 - Course 10, PE, Mil, 8, PE, 8, 10 distance 7.98nm 27knots Swell 2m ambient temperature 13°C

Sail # Class Yacht Skipper Club TCF IRC TCC Finished Elapsed Corr. Place IRC

SA 1278 Simonis 35 mod Wallbanger Brian Gardener 1.095 15 7 7 1 7 7 1 13 29 1
SA 204 J 27 Smack Water Jack Trygve Roberts 0.995 0.938 15 15 1 1 15 1 1 14 38 1 10 22 2 1
SA1146 Compass 47 Cathy R J Rabie 1.02 15 14 3 1 14 3 1 15 32 3
069 L 26 Mac A Tini Peter Hill 0.955 15 19 46 1 19 46 1 16 11 4
SA 3113 Farr 395 Golf & Wine JJ Provoyeur 1.19 1.118 15 4 3 1 4 3 1 16 13 1 11 37 5 2
SA 3141 Beneteau 6.5m Always Well
Natalie Burls 1.01 1.022 15 18 35 1 18 35 1 19 22 1 20 19 6 3
SA 3174 X 332 Zebra Connie Papageorge 1.045 15 16 14 1 16 14 1 19 40 7
SA 223 Impact Impact Jackie Brand 0.92 15 30 44 1 30 44 1 23 28 8
SA 2126 Jaz 30 Monkies in the Mist
Bernard Diebold 1.14 15 14 3 1 14 3 1 24 25 9
SA 33 Miura Julie III R Green 0.935 15 30 34 1 30 34 1 24 41 10
SA 130 Muira Apricot Bat Tromp 0.935 15 31 22 1 31 22 1 25 26 11
2676 Bucanneer Let's Go Duncan Johnson 0.8 16 0 56 2 0 56 1 36 45 12
024 L34 Six Pak/WWB P Holloway 1.015 R T D
SA339 Impact Mod Halali Erich Lehmann 0.95 R T D
SA765 Farr 40 PG Glass Majimoto II
Lindsey Birch 1.13 R T D

15th July, 2006

Winter Series A - Race 3

Race in a nutshell: Bobbed around in zero wind and a lumpy sea near the start area for almost an hour, in the process getting a large sheet of plastic wrapped around the prop, talking loads of nonsense and eventually, after waiting for the abandonement flag, heading off to the V&A's Quay Four, where we moored up in seamanlike fashion and spent the afternoon drinking draught beer, ducking seagulls and talking even more nonsense as large drops of rain gently fell on our table and into our beer. So........? We had oilies on!

The following brave and intrepid crew members deserve medals to the Order of Wolraad Woltemade in the ultimate attention to their duties as crew members loyal to the J27 design. This includes drinking beer and leaving Quay Four in a manner befitting their stations in life; not throwing up, nor falling into the sea; not forgetting to untie the mooring lines.

Alan Taylor
Greg Harrowsmith
Phillip Rentschler
Simon Penso
Chris Miller

Till next week..........



Weather Forecast: Cloudy with 60% rain and thundershowers. Wind Fresh Southerly. Temp. 11/17C, Baro: 1006hPa, Deep Sea swell: 3.5m SSW

Weather Actual: Wind was zero knots. The rest of the forecast was accurate.
Geez weather bureau - talk about getting it wrong!

Never one to let an opportunity go wasted, we turned the afternoon into a team building exercise. Whilst we were doing our thing at Quay Four, our mighty Springbok rugby team suffered the worst international defeat in history. Let this be a lesson to all those skippers who elected to stay at the club and watch the match. I am so glad I missed that one!

Alan's J27 was lying gracefully in the water at the entrance to F jetty, sans it's mast, but she is looking very good - with new decals and deckwork - Just the stick to be popped in, which is scheduled for today (Monday).

Alan is off to sail the Vasco da Gama race (Mozambique/Maputo to Durban) on a Fast 42 (now called Pacer 42)....you know the design where the keel falls off without warning! (Gulp!)

We wish him a fantastic trip and Godspeed.

The third J27 owner, Peter Hill, is training in an L26 for Lipton, so we have not seen much of Hillbilly this winter. I would imagine by September/October, all three J's should be a regular sight on Table Bay.

8th July, 2006

WINTER SERIES A – RACE 2

Race in a nutshell:
Position (IRC): 2nd
Position (PHRF): 2nd
Position Line Classes 1 & 2 : 4th
Total Entries: 21

Ave Speed: 5.6 kts
Max Speed: 8.6 kts
Distance: 11.4 nm.
Time: 01:31.07


Weather Forecast: Fine. Wind East 10 knots Temp. 15/24C, Baro: 1022hPa, Deep Sea swell: 2.0m SW

Weather Actual: Wind was ESE 8 to 12 knots . The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P ) – Milnerton (P) – No.10 (P) – Paarden Island (P ) – Woodbridge (P) – No.4 (P) - No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, and Quantum Red Reacher.

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Alan Taylor (Main), Waldo Zevenster (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Greg Harrowsmith (Bow), (Total: 508kg)

Twenty Six seconds was all that separated us from another 1st place. This week the boys on Wallbanger (Simonis 35 modified) sailed much better to pip us at the post, but with a one - two scoreline, we are still the series leader. On the other hand a mere 15 seconds prevented Golf & Wine from beating us into 2nd place. It was a close race for the top three boats and the more consistent matching IRC vs PHRF result indicates that RCYC have finally got the J27 PHRF rating correct at 0.995

Notwithstanding several crew changes each week, we are still managing to produce consistently solid results. This week we had Alan Taylor back with us for his second foray into the murky world of J27 crewing. By now readers will know Alan is the owner of the J27 Pure Magic and feeling just a tad miffed at the slow rate of progress getting his boat launched. Waldo was back as Genoa/Spinnaker trimmer and Simon Penso came back for his third spin on Smackwater Jack. Greg bravely filled in at foredeck whilst honestly professing he might be a little rusty. And whilst we are on that topic, let me say that a J27 does not much like having a 95 kg bowman. That big spade rudder gets decidedly bitchy.

The start line showed only 6 degrees of starboard bias, so we opted for a wall end start. The south easter appeared not to be producing any significant lift towards Paarden Island mark, so the longer distance to be sailed by starting at the wall would hopefully be nullified by being more to windward than the fleet. And so it was.

Our timing at the start was great and we came steaming up to the line doing 6 knots but had two boats in our way. Ariel – an RCOD – we got her out of the way by luffing them, but the 30 ft Impact was not quite so obedient, so we did a quick scoop to leeward to accelerate and then powered up and ahead of them. Within 30 seconds they were directly behind us and sitting in our dirties. We held onto our starboard tack with only the new Farr 395 crossing just ahead of us on port.

We were lifting more and more on starboard. To tack away onto port was not on, but as we know only too well, to remain on a lifting tack eventually takes one on the great circle route around the buoy on the wrong side. Eventually we went, but we had lost some ground. We rounded 6th just ahead of Lapwing, having lost almost 20 boat lengths by hanging on too long, but all six boats ahead of us were Class 1 boats. We seemed to have Class 2 nicely sewn up.

Good spinnaker work had us breaking away ahead of the bunch. To windward we had the Mumm 30/Jaz30 (Monkeys in the Mist) doing a two sail reach and for some obscure reason not hoisting their asymmetric. To leeward we had Lapwing(L34) and Zebra (X332) whilst dead ahead we had the 49ft Aurora – also with no kite up.

We soon started running up the stern of Aurora (a huge yacht) and going to leeward of them would be suicide with such a big wind shadow. I started carefully nudging SWJack more upwind with Aurora responding with an immediate luff. How aggressive would their skipper be? We responded and having the reacher up allowed us to point very high. Aurora gave up on us at that point and allowed us through. That little exercise gave us a 50m lead on Lapwing and Zebra.

But the wind was freeing as we sailed along the beach. The Mumm got it’s asymmetric up eventually and the horses came on big time. As they closed in on us, I had to decide to let them ride over us or challenge them. Having seen how tentative they had been about putting the kite up, I figured them fair game for a duel, so I prepped Waldo and Alan quietly for hardening up. It was all over very quickly with the Mumm not being able to copy our height. I had given them enough space to duck to leeward of us. With all the opposition sorted out, we could concentrate on max speed and a good mark rounding.

The bigger boats ahead on the next leg could not carry spinnakers, so we also went with the No.1 Genoa option and took the reacher down just before the mark. The next leg up to No.10 was a few degrees shy of a beat but this breeze also tended towards freeing the further up the bay we went. Lapwing was gradually closing the gap on us. By the time we neared No.10, she was within one boat length of us and we had to do some skillful manouvering to keep the L34 where we wanted it to be. Our rounding was slick and fast.

Despite Lapwing’s attempt at luffing sharply to gain height on us, they merely lost speed and allowed us to get away. Lapwing then tacked away onto starboard and we pushed on towards the wall.

Aurora had also made up distance on us on the previous leg (which a 50 footer should!) and tried in vain to overtake us on the beat. We were doing 6.4 knots constantly and pointing 5 degrees higher than them, allowing us to increase our lead over them. We also made up 30 lengths on Lapwing, giving us an uncontested rounding of Paarden Island mark and a quick spinnaker hoist. No problems down to Woodbridge buoy and this time we could keep the reacher up for the leg to No.4 buoy, with a sustained speed of 7.8 knots in 10 knots of breeze.

We held Lapwing, Zebra and Aurora all the way to No.4 which presented us with a challenging strike scenario, which had the spinnaker floating on the water to leeward after rounding, but Greg had it all sorted out in short order. Waldo called the layline to No.10 perfectly and we crossed the finish line on a good lift.

This was another excellent race in perfect Cape winter weather. Once again we were all sailing in short sleeves. Thoroughly enjoyable stuff. We had a near perfect race and made very few mistakes of any consequence, resulting in another podium finish. I had to miss the prize giving due to having to take some inland family guests out for a pleasure cruise. Phillip and Simon agreed to do the crewing bits. Thanks guys.

In the harbour there was almost no wind, but outside the breakwater we had a solid 12 knot south easterly blowing, so we popped the No.3 headsail up (mainly to avoid too many shrieks of anxiety when the boat heels too much) and had a great sail over to Milnerton beach doing 7.5 knots all the way there and back. A quick tour through the V&A, a whale sighting, a pod of dolphins and a few lazy seals all made for a happy occasion for my guests and it was all smiles back at the dock for them – and for us too when I saw the results on the notice board.

Sail # Class Yacht Skipper Club TCF IRC TCC Finished Elapsed Corr. Place IRC

SA 1278 Simonis 35 mod Wallbanger Brian Gardener 1.095 15 22 24 1 22 24 1 30 14 1

SA 204 J 27 Smack Water Jack Trygve Roberts 0.995 0.938 15 31 7 1 31 7 1 30 40 1 25 28 2 2

SA 3113 Farr 395 Golf & Wine JJ Provoyeur 1.19 1.118 15 16 24 1 16 24 1 30 55 1 25 25 3 1

2954 Bavaria M 38 Sheshisa Lood Rabie 1.095 15 23 49 1 23 49 1 31 47 4

SA 223 Impact Impact Jackie Brand 0.92 15 41 3 1 41 3 1 32 58 5
069

L 26 Mac A Tini Peter Hill 0.955 15 38 26 1 38 26 1 34 0 6

010 L34 Lapwing Alan Keen 1.015 0.97 15 32 48 1 32 48 1 34 11 1 30 1 7 3

13 RCOD Ariel Sheriff Saville 0.925 15 42 14 1 42 14 1 34 34 8

SA339 Impact Mod Halali Erich Lehmann 0.95 15 41 30 1 41 30 1 36 26 9

SA765 Farr 40 PG Glass Majimoto II
Lindsey Birch 1.13 15 25 50 1 25 50 1 36 59 10

NAM 10 Farr 40 Alladin Bjiorn Geiger 1.09 15 29 2 1 29 2 1 37 3 11

SA1146 Compass 47 Cathy R J Rabie 1.02 15 35 46 1 35 46 1 37 41 12

SA 3174 X 332 Zebra Connie Papageorge 1.045 15 33 38 1 33 38 1 37 51 13

078 L 26 JML Isivungu 0.955 15 43 41 1 43 41 1 39 1 14

SA 130 Muira Apricot Bat Tromp 0.935 15 46 52 1 46 52 1 39 55 15

SA 2126 Jaz 30 Monkies in the Mist
Bernard Diebold 1.14 15 28 25 1 28 25 1 40 48 16

SA 978 Atlantis 49 Aurora Mel Hawtrey 1.085 15 33 27 1 33 27 1 41 23 17

SA 702 Charger 33 FTI Flyer Keith Mattison 0.995 15 48 50 1 48 50 1 48 17 18

893 Muira Chen Iain McGuigan 0.935 15 57 25 1 57 25 1 49 47 19

2676 Bucanneer Let's Go Duncan Johnson 0.8 16 20 15 2 20 15 1 52 12 20

Aldis 39 Rhapsody Tom Figl 1.1 15 42 50 1 42 50 1 53 7 21

1st July, 2006
WINTER SERIES A – RACE 1

Race in a nutshell:
Position (IRC): 1st
Position (PHRF): 1st
Position Line Classes 1 & 2 : 6th
Total Entries: 21

Ave Speed: 5.7 kts
Max Speed: 11.6 kts
Distance: 13.1 nm.
Time: 01:46.20


Weather Forecast: Fine. Wind North to North West 15 knots Temp. 14/23C, Baro: 1009hPa, Deep Sea swell: 2.5m SW

Weather Actual: Wind was 5 to 12 knots. The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Start No:10 (S) – #2 (S) – Milnerton (S) – #2 (P) – No.10 (P) – Paarden Island (P ) – No. 8 (P) – No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, and Quantum Red Reacher.

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Greg Harrowsmith (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Craig Tarr (Mast), Chris Miller (Bow), (Total: 506kg)

Chris is back from the UK and with Nic in the USA for 3 weeks; things panned out rather nicely having one bowman replace the other in a seamless sort of manner.

Another crewmember who has not been on board for a while as he pursued his most avid pastime (enamoring himself with the ladies) is the enigmatic and vocal Craig Tarr, who graced us with his presence last Saturday. Waldo was otherwise occupied, so I moved Greg to trim Genoa and that gave us a healthy mix of talent in the right places.

With two whales frolicking in the confines of the V&A Waterfront harbour area, all yachts were requested to keep a sharp lookout and to give the whales right of way at all times.

Out at the start area, it was immediately obvious that the forecasted 15 knots was nowhere to be seen, so we hauled the No.1 genny on deck and got set up. Once we heard the course, we changed our minds from the .5oz Quantum to the .6oz red reacher – which turned out to be a very astute move.

It never fails to amaze me how quickly one developes ‘ring rust’. Certainly your scribe underestimated the time it would take to sail from one end of the start line to the other and then I positioned Smackwater Jack right downwind of about six big boats, which created a hole big enough for us get lost in. As a small consolation, the L34 – Lapwing – one of our main competitors was an even worse position than we were. The fleet were all early and went reaching off down the line, allowing Lapwing and ourselves the opportunity to tack onto port and sail into clear air.

The two mile beat up to the No.2 Channel Buoy had Lapwing sailing slightly faster than us and pointing higher than us, forcing us to tack back onto starboard. That turned out to be an advantage to us as we picked up a nice lift and were able to get back onto the lay line in short order. With a sloppy and uncomfortable sea running and only about 5 knots of wind, we were only getting 5.4 knots out of the boat. So I resolutely pointed lower and footed her off for better speed, but less height. This meant having to stick in a short hitch near the mark, but we had gained and were about 3 boat lengths ahead of Lapwing. Slightly ahead was the X332 Zebra.

We did the best spinnaker hoist of our group and soon powered ahead of the two bigger boats as we settled down for the long reach down to Milnerton. I must give kudos’ to Quantum for this sail. It really works well on beam and close reaches. This is the second time we have used it on this type of course and we have gained valuable distance on the opposition in each case. The sail is fairly flat with narrow shoulders and we can carry it up to 60 degrees easily.

Closer to Milnerton mark, the wind started headering, forcing us to rehoist the No.1 Genoa and drop the reacher. No problems with the rounding, but we had to give Zebra water at the mark. It was a tight fetch back to No.2 mark with a gaggle of big boats far ahead of us and the two bigger 34 footers Lapwing and Zebra within striking distance.

We had a solid 7.5 knots on the log and were holding the bigger boats nicely. No tactics involved here – just sail trim and boat speed – most of the ring rust had disappeared and we were doing a fairly efficient job of staying in the game.

Leaving No.2 buoy to port we had the reacher back up for the reach to No.10. We could see the bigger boats had all slowed down considerably a mile ahead of us. The breeze was back down to 5 knots. In this sort of wind, we are dynamite and the gap soon started closing. I had Chris haul the lightweight kite up on deck, but fresh breeze was pushing in from behind, allowing us a better angle with the reacher, so we left it up and executed a pathetic gybe, much to the embarrassment of the guilty parties, but it didn’t slow us down much and the gap between Zebra and Lapwing was suddenly down to just a few boat lengths.

Leaving Paarden Island buoy to port, left us with a short upwind leg to No.8 – After a brief period on port tack, we decided to stay in the new breeze which had filled in on the shore side. In fact it had filled in to over 15 knots and we were starting to get overpowered. Once we had rolled over onto starboard tack, we picked up a 32 degree lift, gaining plenty on both Lapwing and Zebra to leeward of us. By the time we crossed tacks with them near No. 8 we were right up their transoms. With our handicap advantage, they would never be able to shake us off in the final reaching leg to the finish.

None of the bigger boats carried spinnaker on the final leg, but we decided to go for broke and popped the red reacher up again, allowing us to finish only seconds behind the two bigger boats on actual time. On handicap, we slaughtered them.
Back at the clubhouse, we were delighted to find that we had won the race Class 1 & 2 combined on both IRC and PHRF. Lapwing came 2nd and Zebra 3rd. The hole near Paarden Island had been the undoing of the Class 1 boats. The leading boat, a Farr 395 ended up with a 6th on PHRF and a 4th under IRC.

Our spinnaker halyard needed replacing, so we rigged a messenger once back at the dock, which jammed at the sheave box, so Chris was sent up to release it, but Chris, in his efforts to scramble up the mast managed to tear his shorts right down the centre seam, exposing his butt to all those sailing folk walking down the jetty. Craig Tarr was the first to notice and was in such a state of paralysis from laughing, that all he could manage was to point up the mast tears rolling down his cheeks, clutching his stomach with his free hand. One by one we all realized what was so funny and the hapless Chris was left hanging up the mast on full public display to the delight and mirth of his fellow crew members.

Winter sailing in Cape Town is simply fantastic. Not one of us wore a jacket or warm top. Great conditions. Pleasant weather. The club needs much more of this.

Next week we have a few crew changes again. Waldo is back from his travels, but Rodney moves over to run his Lipton Cup campaign, so Greg will be moved back as main trimmer. There four more races to go in this series culminating in the distance event around Robben Island.

Results PHRF Classes 1 & 2 Combined

1st Smackwater Jack - J27 - T.Roberts
2nd Lapwing - L34 - A.Keen
3rd Zebra - X332 - C.Papageorge
4th Wallbanger - Simonis 35 - B.Gardener
5th PG Glass - Farr 40 - P.Mare
6th Golf & Wine - Farr 395 - JJ Provoyeur
7th Hors d'Ouvre - L26 - P.Bam
8th Ariel - RCOD 30 - S.Saville
9th JML - L26 - Isivungu
10th Cathy R - Compass 47 - J.Rabie
11th Aquavit - L34 - P Flockton
12th TallyHo - L34 - J.Waller
13th Halali - Impact 30 - E Lehman
14th Saoirsi - Atlantis 36 - T Blackwell
15th FTi Flyer - Charger 33 - K Mattison
16th Morgenster - L34 - J Lamprechts
17th Chen - Muira 30 - I.McGuigan
18th Nauti Buoy - Petersen 33 - T vd Hoek
19th Reaction - RCOD 30 - T Boecker
20th Sea Gull - Stadt 34 - H McGlachlan
21st lets Go - Bucanneer - D Johnson

Results IRC All Classes

1st Smackwater Jack - J27 - T.Roberts
2nd Lapwing - L34 - A.Keen
3rd Hors d'Ouvre - L26 - P.Bam
4th Golf & Wine - Farr 395 - JJ Provoyeur

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20th & 21st May, 2006
TABLE BAY CLASSIC REGATTA

Getting ready to round the weather mark in Race 1

Pic: Trevor Wilkins

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Races in a nutshell:
Five ‘Windward/leeward’ races and one medium distance race.

Overall Position (IRC Class 2): 1st
Overall Position (PHRF Class 2): 2nd
Overall Position (IRC Class 1 & 2) 3rd
Overall Position (PHRF Class 1 & 2) 4th

Total Entries: 30 (Racing Fleet 15 + Cruiser fleet 14 = 29)
Max Speed: 12.3 kts (in Race 4)

Weather Forecast - Saturday:
Cloudy with 60% rain clearing later
Wind: Southerly at 20 knots
Baro: 1002hPa
Temp: 12/14C
Weather Actual: Accurate as per forecast

Weather Forecast - Sunday:
Partly Cloudy – A few morning showers 30%
Wind: South West at 10 knots
Baro: 1005hPa
Temp: 13/15C
Weather Actual: Wind was NW between calm and ten knots

Crew:
Trygve Roberts (Helm)
Rodney Tanner (Main)
Waldo Zevenster (Genoa)
Phillip Rentschler (Halyards)
Greg Harrowsmith (Mast)
Tyran Kerford (Bow)
Total: 485kg

No, we aren't sinking. It looks worse than what it is. Mainly the effects of a telephoto lens...

Here's why a small bowman is useful on a J27. It doesn't take much to take solid water over the bow. The extra crew on the foredeck would be a disater in a big blow.

Pic: Trevor Wilkins

The only way to stay sailing fit is to sail. It really wasn’t that hectic a regatta, but I feel like a tired soldier from the trenches with aching muscles, bruises and a wind-burnt face not unlike an alcoholic on a binge, but all that aside, this was a most enjoyable regatta with thoroughly satisfying sailing on both days, discounting the persistent rain squalls on Saturday morning and a fresh Cape Doctor in the afternoon and the slightly boring soldiers course on Sunday. Winter sailing rocks!

We crossed the finish line in style on Sunday afternoon in a 10 knot north wester, after giving a Simonis 35 a terribly hard time all day, when an errant rope flipped our TackTick electronic compass ( a not inexpensive and essential piece of equipment) overboard. We have a resident Superhero on board Smackwater Jack in the shape of Rodney Tanner – always quick off the mark in emergency situations. He leapt over the guard rails in a not so gracious attempt at a semi dive into Table Bay to retrieve the compass. Whilst this act of heroism might seem trifling to some of you, perhaps I should paint a clearer picture: It was cold and our man had a full set of oilies on, boots and (thanks to the skipper for insisting on this) his lifejacket. The sea temperature is usually 10C, but our instruments said it was 13C. Rodney later confirmed that it felt a lot colder than 13C!

As Superman launched into his dive, I called out: “DON’T WORRY! IT FLOATS! But the advice was far too late. He hit the water in a great splash of orange clothing amidst untamed laughter from the crew. We were sailing upwind at the time doing 6 knots and still managed to get back to him within 10 seconds. Getting him onboard was something of a mission, but with four guys hauling, we had him back on board. The sunglasses he customarily wears on his forehead were A.W.O.L. but he had the Tacktick safe and sound.

So, some lessons learned again. One cannot swim at all with oilies and boots on, but at least we proved that our lifejackets can keep us afloat indefinitely or until hypothermia takes us to never-never land. To end up with a man overboard scenario and that unlucky person is not wearing a lifejacket, the chances are that even 2 minutes will not be enough to save him. We were in flat water and light winds and have a highly manouverable boat and we had him back on board in under 30 seconds, but in a more serious situation (big waves, high winds) it will take considerably longer. This was our first regatta with our new rule of lifejackets being compulsory for everyone and already it has proved itself worthwhile. They are uncomfortable, but we will get used to them. The shoulder buckles have a habit of snagging on the upper lifelines as the crew move from side to side. It’s a pain in the arse, but it’s a lot better than drowning, so we will never let up on this rule on our boat.

Thankyou Rodney!

Back to the racing……….I woke on Saturday morning to blasting wind and rain lashing on the bedroom window and instinctively turned over and pulled the duvet tighter around my neck and then I realized: “Oh Shit. We’re racing today!”

The drive down to the club was even worse. Rain, rain and more rain. The guys arrived in dribs and drabs and we settled for a cup of hot coffee before rigging. Once out on the bay, the first rain squall came through before we even had a start signal, and we were all wet – especially cold, were our hands and faces.

The RC (race committee) decided on an unsual format for this regatta and it seemed to work quite well. A single start for Class 1 & 2 PHRF and IRC boats – all of them 10 minutes after the Cruising Class, the latter who were due to sail a single medium distance Bay race on each day. The rest of us were scheduled for 4 windward/leeward races. There were some hot shots on the bigger boats with Rick Nankin, Geoff meek, JJ Provoyeur and Greg Davis all being present. In Class 2, we had the two L34’s ‘Sensation’ and ‘Lapwing’, as well as the J27 Hillbilly to consider as serious opposition. And of course, the Beneteau 7.5 ‘Always Well’

The series of pics below (by Trevor Wilkins) show how we dominated the favoured committee boat end of the line. A minnow swimming amongst the sharks.

Getting into position. The Simonis 35 is to leeward of us. The stern of the committee boat is on the right of pic

We have dropped the Simonis astern and hit the line on the gun with the new 40ft Beneteau "Golf & Wine" - being the only other boat to do the same.

And another perfect, clean start to log - exactly where we wanted to be and going fast and pointing higher and heeling less than all the other boats

Race 1: Windward/Leeward x 2 - 16 knots of breeze out of the south, so we settled for the No. 2 Genoa, which proved to be an excellent choice. We checked the line bias – 21 degrees starboard! No question – we would start at the committee boat even if it meant hanging back. We came in with some speed, chose a spot behind the line, and started luffing the boats to windward, bore off, and hit the line with Geoff Meek on ‘HiFidelity’ (Welbourne 46). An excellent start and we were the only Class 2 boat in amongst the big boys and cracking up the beat at 6,5 knots. We all know the buoys in the bay well and tacked over onto port to pick up the lift towards the Paarden Island mark. Everything was going well and we had Hillbilly and both L34’s under control. We were ahead and on the correct side of the course.

Then Phillip heard the mark layer call the bridge on Ch.71 to say that Thunderchild (L52) had just rounded the weather mark. Only problem, was, we couldn’t see Thunderchild and we were looking at the weather mark! It dawned on us painfully that we had sailed to the wrong mark and we instantly bore off to get to the correct mark, now well down wind to our port side. Surely we couldnt be right and the entire fleet wrong? Hillbilly and one other boat had made the same mistake as us. It cost us dearly, allowing both L34’s to round ahead of us.

It was with some amusement on Sunday morning, that I learned that the entire fleet had in fact, sailed around the wrong mark. Due to the club losing the old Woodstock mark to underwater construction of the harbour authorities, that mark has been moved to Woodbridge Island and renamed accordingly. Now imagine if we had sailed to the correct mark, and protested the entire fleet?!! Anyway, the RC decided that since everyone sailed around the same incorrect mark, the results would stand. Another lesson learned: TRUST YOUR INSTRUMENTS.

This also got me thinking about sportsmanship in such a situation. What is the correct thing to do? Notify all competitors immediately that one realises they are sailing to the wrong mark, or wait until you have rounded first and then only notify them, or just sail the course and say nothing - protest later? Ah, yes...some interesting moral issues there? It also brought home with considerable impact how a fleet tends to follow the leader unquestionably. (Now that is really dumb!)

We caught up nicely and even made time up on the second beat with very good boatspeed and finished within striking range of the L34’s and far ahead of Hillbilly to get a 1st IRC result and a 3rd PHRF - once again highlighting the discrepancy between the two rating systems. Peter had four newbies on board Hillbilly as well as Thomas Swana (of Laser 28 ‘Ukuzwana’ fame) and had his fair share of problems getting them to gel as a team.

Results:
Class 2 IRC Race 1
1st Smackwater Jack – J27
2nd Lapwing – L34
3rd Sensation – L34
4th Always Well – Beneteau 7.5
5th Hillbilly – J27

Class 2 PHRF
1st Lapwing - L34
2nd Sensation - L34
3rd Smackwater Jack - J27
4th Always Well - Ben 7.5
5th Hillbilly - J27
6th Vortex – L34
7th JML – L26

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The series of pics below by Trevor Wilkins shows us going round the top mark without buggering anything up...

Layline approach on starboard tack with crew correctly hiked out doing 6.5 knots

Greg hauling hard on the halyard as Tyran feeds the kite out the hatch. We have just started rotating around the buoy

A second later and the kite is up as we turn onto 150 degrees

And the Mamba sets efficiently. Great crew work. Now let's do that in 30 knots !

Pic: Trevor Wilkins

Race 2: Windward/Leeward x 2 - Rain squalls and a 17 knot southerly breeze. We stuck with the same sail combination and had another cracker start giving the big boats a torrid time with our ability to spin and tack our boat so fast. We stuck to the same game plan with a committee boat end start and pulled off another good first beat, nicely complimented by Sensation being late and Lapwing going the wrong side. We rounded first in Class 2 and set the Mamba for a great downwind sail, using our gybing angles well and with our crew working really well together. There’s nothing like being in the front to make for a happy crew! Downwind speeds were between 8 and 10 knots and just insuficient wind to get onto the plane.

We could feel the breeze losing power in the second half of the downwind leg and decided to change to the No.1 Genoa for the second beat. Once again, we made a good call and we were able to remain in the lead (of Class 2) at the second weather mark rounding.

During the final run, the breeze dropped right down to about 5 knots and we had to use shallower gybe angles to maintain our boat speed.

Sensation was playing catch up and managed to just pip us before the line, but we had them all easily on IRC handicap and a more disappointing 2nd place under PHRF.

Results:
Class 2 IRC
1st Smackwater Jack - J27
2nd Sensation - L34
3rd Hillbilly - J27
4th Lapwing - L34
5th Always Well - Ben 7.5

Class 2 PHRF
1st Sensation - L34
2nd Smackwater Jack - J27
3rd Lapwing - L34
4th Hillbilly - J27
5th Always Well - Ben 7.5
6th Vortex - L34
7th JML - L26

Leading the two L34's Sensation and Lapwing near the weather mark in Race 2

Pic: Trevor Wilkins

Race 3: Windward/leeward x 2 - Rain squalls, some sunshine. Wind southerly 17 knots becoming 5 knots. We went back to the No.2 Genoa for this race.
Another text book start for us even though we were about 4 seconds late. I think the rest of the fleet got confused with the signals and we made another clean getaway, but this time the two L34’s were giving us a lot more competition. We were able to sustain an upwind boatspeed of 6.2 to 6.5 knots despite the chop on the water. That kept us up with the bigger boats.

On the final run, the breeze started picking up again into the upper teens and during a strike, a few things went wrong, of which the final result was watching the inboard end of the spinnaker pole bursting through the middle of the mainsail. We managed that little trick during Table Bay Week as well. A sizeable hole was left about a foot long. But Kevlar is strong stuff and the hole did not tear any further for the duration of the race. After finishing, we quickly had Tyran , who just happens to work at North Sails, stick some “sticky-back” over the hole. He also gamely volunteered to take the sail back to the loft and repair it on Saturday evening. Great crew on this boat, I tell you! With a light forecast for the following day, I felt it unnecessary to go to all that trouble.

So we had a hat trick of bullets under IRC and a dismal 3rd place under PHRF for this race.

Results:
IRC Class 2
1st Smackwater Jack - J27
2nd Sensation - L34
3rd Always Well - Beneteau 7.5
4th Lapwing - L34
5th Hillbilly - J27

PHRF Class 2:
1st Sensation - L34
2nd Always Well - Ben 7.5
3rd Smackwater Jack - J27
4th Lapwing - L34
5th Hillbilly - J27
6th JML - L26
7th Vortex - L34

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The series of pics below show how good mark rounding technique can gain places

The big boat on the left is a Vickers 41 called "Avanti". They had an inside overlap on us approaching the mark, but they left a gap for us to slide into. Here we are doing rapid trimming as we quuickly trim up for maximum height and speed.

We are trimmed - They are 'heads down' struggling with big sails

They then spot us and attempt to luff, but in the process lose more speed

And we are gone.....Bye, bye!

Race 4: Windward/leeward x 2 – Wind 20 to 24 knots South East. No rain, but spray - the wet and salty type and bloody cold. We sensibly decided to go down another gear and put up the No.3 Genoa - the blade. Once again, our sail choices were accurate, as we were able to still go upwind at 6.2 knots and the boat was easy to steer as we were heeling much less. Some great downwind sailing in this race was enjoyed and we had the foils humming once or twice and managed to get her up to 12.3 knots at one point.

In this wind strength the L34's usually give us a hard time and we slid down to a 2nd IRC result and a 3rd PHRF.

Results:
IRC Class 2
1st Sensation - L34
2nd Smackwater Jack - J27
3rd Lapwing - L34
4th Hillbilly - J27
5th Always Well - Ben 7.5

PHRF Class 2
1st Sensation - L34
2nd Lapwing - L34
3rd Smackwater Jack - J27
4th Always Well - Ben 7.5
5th Hillbilly - J27
6th JML - L26
7th Vortex - L34



The hot showers were heavenly, as was the Gluhwein and hot soup after racing.

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Wet, cold and frozen, but check those happy faces......what a great crew!

L to R: Rodney, Waldo, Phillip, Greg, Tyran

The bottom looks dirty. I had better have a chat with the diver who promised it was spotless.

Pic: Trevor Wilkins

Sunday 21st:
Race 5: Medium Distance Race of 27 nautical miles (Double Scoring)
Wind: Light North West; Sunshine.

As the crew arrived I heard the reports of who faded first the night before. Phillip took the record by being asleep by 7.30 pm and he managed a 12 hour shift in dreamland (I didn’t realize being pitman was that tough. Mind you he is still recovering from his honeymoon) Then Waldo at 8.30, Tripod at 9, Rodney and Greg shortly after, and the skipper pretended to be awake at 11pm……but that’s another story.

We motored out to the start area for a wall start and as soon as we heard the course, I knew we had to be at the pin end, no matter what. The wind was very light, maybe around 2 to 4 knots. The big boats usually make mincemeat out of the little boats at these light wind starts, so I tried to keep our momentum up but also tried to stay as close to the pin as possible. The course to the first mark, was a fetch, which meant being as high up the pin end would be vital. Then Hifidelity (Geoff Meek) did something really odd. They arrived at the pin too early on starboard - tacked around the pin onto port and tried to dive back under the line amongst a horde of starboard tackers. Some choice language was heard, but we were on the line, at the pin, as the gun went. And we were off. Probably our best start of the regatta. It was really cool looking around and below us we had a 46 foot racing machine and behind us a 52 footer. We obviously knew it wouldn’t last.

A few minutes later Hifidelity powered through our lee and gave us a serious set of dirties.We couldn’t tack away as the fleet was coming up to weather of us – all the big boats – and besides we were footing off to retain speed, but sacrificing height. This leg would prove to be something of a lottery as the holes soon started to make themselves felt and a while later we parked, whilst those on the right were still in breeze. We dicided that staying left was suicidal and tacked over to get back into the breeze. In the process we lost our lead to Sensation, who did a very long starboard tack almost to the layline. This was a long leg which would take us almost to Robben Island – upwind and upcurrent in a very light breeze. Concentration was what was needed. Boredom was what we had. By the time we reached the weather mark, Sensation was long gone, but we were not looking too bad. Lapwing had also managed to overtake us on this leg.

Being a double scoring race, it was important that we remain focused. We were a long way ahead of Hillbilly, but Lapwing had a 500m lead on us. We deployed the red reaching kite and instantly the boat felt good on the beam reach down to Blouberg. We concentrated on surfing the waves, but the wind was too light to make much of it. Much to our surprise, we overtook a Simonis 35 ‘Pallucci’ going at least one knot faster than them. They tried luffing us, but it was to no avail – we powered straight over them, all the while being able to hold our flatter reaching spinnaker with relative ease. A little advice to the crew of Pallucci about easing their leeward barber hauler, saw an immediate improvement in their performance and after that they became our sparring partners for the rest of the race.

It took a long time to get down to Blouberg, and once we had executed a perfect gybe, we reset the reacher for the long leg to the No.2 channel buoy. We were able to keep pace with the Simonis 35 and a another 33 footer called Zebra on this leg, and to a certain degree, it kept as from getting bored and we kept our speed up, in the process gaining on Lapwing, who had fallen off course and had to strike their spinnaker to get around No.2 mark. The gap quickly narrowed down to 10 boat lengths.

The next short leg to No.10 was a broad reach which allowed us to blanket Lapwing and Zebra and close on them. We had Pallucci to leeward and a few lengths behind us, but they were unable to pass us. By the time we got to No.10, we were four boat lengths behind Lapwing. Zebra, being in the Cruising Class finished their race, leaving the other three boats in a tight bunch to contest the next leg down to Blouberg – a tight fetch.

We stuck on Lapwings stern and to my total surprise, were able to close the gap right down to the point where we could almost overtake them, but that never happened. The rest of the fleet were a very long way behind our group, whilst Sensation had a big lead on our group. We rounded Blouberg in this order - Lapwing, SWJack, Pallucci.

Another long, tight reach followed back to No.2 with spinnakers up. Again we deployed the reacher and enjoyed its flatter cut to make positive gains on the bigger boats. This is a great sail and our newest addition. It was made by Quantum and specifically cut flatter with narrower shoulders out of .6oz nylon. This was the first time we could really put it to the test as most of our downwind legs are broad reaches. The short run to the finish had us chasing Lapwing down again, with Pallucci making the mistake of trying to overtake us to leeward, but not having enough punch to break through our wind shadow. We pipped them over the line. A nice feeling.

But this race was boring. Essentially - other than the first beat – it was just a soldiers course, leaving nothing to do except sail as fast as possible. Whilst that has it’s merits, it’s not cool doing one leg stints. The RC could really have made it more exciting by using a windward/leeward set-up within the existing mark system. I have emailed them!

The double scoring distance race, made this a big boat regatta and I am actually very pleased with our 3rd place overall amongst all the big modern boats. It speaks volumes for the J27 and how we sailed her.

So we attained our goals with another 1st IRC place and a 2nd under PHRF. So for the five races we had four 1sts and one 2nd, which was our discard. We could not have hoped for a better result.

All in all a good regatta with generally enjoyable racing. With a little tweaking and a few sponsors to boost the prizes, this sort of weekend regatta could be repeated more often in the winter season.

I have opinions about prizegivings and how to improve them, but the old "wait till they're pissed and they wont notice the mistakes" theory still seems to rule most yacht clubs.

This prizegiving started badly with no public address system being available, so hearing the announcements was a problem.

Then there were only prizes for the combined fleets. No prizes were given to any of the boats for winning Class 2 IRC or PHRF or even CLass 1 individually for that matter.

I keep telling them that it's not the value of the prize that's important - it's the recognition amongst ones peers that is important.

One other perpetual gripe I have is that the crews are not called up. Each crew member on my boat is important as the skipper. I would really like to see that changed at prizegivings. Got any ideas ? - then email me.

Final Results:

Distance Race IRC:
1st Smackwater Jack
2nd Sensation
3rd Lapwing
4th Hillbilly
5th Always Well



Distance Race: PHRF
1st Sensation
2nd Smackwater Jack
3rd Lapwing
4th Always Well
5th Hillbilly
6th Vortex
7th JML

Part of the fleet on a spinnaker run

Pic: Trevor Wilkins

RESULTS CLASS 2 IRC Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5 T D NT P
SA 204 Smack Water Jack T Roberts J 27 1 1 1 2 1 6 2 4 1
005 Sensation Munnik/Giovanni L 34 3 2 2 1 2 10 3 7 2
010 Lapwing Burger/Keen L 34 2 4 4 3 3 16 4 12 3
SA 198 Hill Billy P Hill J 27 5 3 5 4 4 21 5 16 4
SA 3141 Always Well Burger/Thomas Beneteau 7.5 4 5 3 5 5 21 5 16 5

On the line - on the gun - fighting with the big boys in a boat that costs a fraction of theirs. This gives me a great deal of pleasure!

RESULTS CLASS 2 PHRF Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Race 5 T D NT P
005 Sensation Munnik/Giovanni L 34 2 1 1 1 1 6 2 4 1
SA 204 Smack Water Jack T Roberts J 27 3 2 3 3 2 13 3 10 2
010 Lapwing Burger/Keen L 34 1 3 4 2 5 15 5 10 3
SA 3141 Always Well Burger/Thomas Beneteu 7.5 4 5 2 4 3 18 5 13 4
SA 198 Hill Billy P Hill J 27 6 4 5 5 4 24 6 18 5
Vortex R Lapping L 34 7 6 7 7 6 33 7 26 7
JML 1 Isivunga L 26 5 7 6 6 7 31 7 24 6

Crossing the finish line in Race 2

TABLE BAY CLASSIC 2006 OVERALL BUOY RACERS
FINAL Entries
OVERALL RESULTS IRC Series score sheet

Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Dist Race Cum Disc Final Pos.
Sail No Yacht Owner/skipper Class Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts Pos Pts Pts Pts

SA 3113 Golf & Wine Provoyeur/Nankin Farr 395 5 5 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 11 5 6 1
SA 18881 Hi Fidelity De Villiers/Meek Welbourn 46 4 4 2 2 2 2 4 4 4 4 16 4 12 2
SA 204 Smack Water Jack T Roberts J 27 1 1 3 3 3 3 3 3 6 6 16 3 13 3
005 Sensation Munnik/Giovanni L 34 3 3 4 4 4 4 1 1 8 8 20 4 16 4
010 Lapwing Burger/Keen L 34 2 2 6 6 6 6 5 5 10 10 29 6 23 5
SA 198 Hill Billy P Hill J 27 9 9 5 5 7 7 6 6 12 12 39 9 30 6
SA 3141 Always Well Burger/Thomas Beneteau 7.5 7 7 8 8 5 5 7 7 16 16 43 8 35 7
SA 2954 Sheshisa L Rabie Bavaria Match 38 6 6 9 9 8 8 8 8 14 14 45 9 36 8
SA 2103 Avanti H Brehm Vickers 41 8 8 7 7 9 9 9 9 18 18 51 9 42 9

The Terrier dogfighting with the Great Danes

OVERALL PHRF RESULTS


Sail No



CLUB HANDICAP CLASSES 1 & 2
Race 1 Race 2 Race 3 Race 4 Dist Race Cum Disc Final Pos.
Sail No Yacht Owner/skipper Class Pos Pos Pos Pos Pos Pts Pts Pts
SA 18881 Hi Fidelity De Villiers/Meek Welbourn 46 4 2 1 3 2 2 12 4 8 1
SA 3113 Golf & Wine Provoyeur/Nankin Farr 395 7 1 2 2 4 4 16 7 9 2
005 Sensation Munnik/Giovanni L 34 2 4 3 1 6 6 16 4 12 3
SA 204 Smack Water Jack T Roberts J 27 3 5 5 5 8 8 26 5 21 4
010 Lapwing Burger/Keen L 34 1 7 6 4 12 12 30 7 23 5
SA 3141 Always Well Burger/Thomas Beneteu 7.5 5 9 4 9 10 10 37 9 28 6
Wallbanger B Gardener Simonis 35 6 6 7 6 14 14 39 7 32 7
SA 198 Hill Billy P Hill J 27 13 8 8 10 16 16 55 13 42 8
Thunderchild R & B Goldswain Lav 52 9 3 15 8 26 26 61 15 46 9
SA 2954 Sheshisa L Rabie Bavaria Match 38 8 12 9 11 18 18 58 12 46 10
Aladdin B Geiger Farr 40 10 10 11 7 28 28 66 11 55 11
Pallucci Syd Kaye Simonis 35 14 15 10 13 22 22 74 15 59 12
SA 2103 Avanti H Brehm Vickers 41 11 11 14 14 24 24 74 14 60 13
Vortex R Lapping L 34 15 13 13 DNC 20 20 77 16 61 14
JML 1 Isivunga L 26 12 14 12 12 DNC 32 82 16 66 15

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23rd May, 2006
PHRF Round One (of many) goes to the J27

It sidled quite unexpectedly into my Inbox this morning as an attachment.
Read for yourself:

RCYC Club Ratings
Recommened TCF changes to apply from June 1st 2006

Yacht/Class Current Proposed %
Thunderchild w No 2 genoa 1.280 1.260 -1.6
Farr 40s 1.135 1.125 -0.9 Majomoto & Faraway
Scatterling 1.135 1.125 -0.9
Simonis 35s Mod 1.105 1.095 -0.9 Wallbanger
Alladin 1.100 1.090 -0.9
Touch & Go 1.090 1.080 -0.9
Nutcracker 1.090 1.080 -0.9
Zebra 1.035 1.045 1.0
Allways Well 1.020 1.010 -1.0
J27s 1.005 0.995 -1.0
Indaba 0.970 0.960 -1.0
Bucanners 0.815 0.800 -1.8

So, this is the second victory in my two year long frustrating fight with the powers that be at RCYC for a more equitable rating for the J27.

In 2004 the J27 rated 1.015 - level with the L34. By 2005 I managed to persuade the club to reduce our rating. Whilst I did not get what I asked for, our rating went down to 1.005. Still too high, but at least we could get a few seconds from the bigger boats........(the positive spin-off of this was that we had to sail our butts off to win anything and that certainly helped to raise our standards)

During the last six months my main aim with PHRF was to rectify the anomaly with the Laser 28's rating (See the article on PHRF lower down on this page)

With several rebuffs from the club handicapper, steadfastly refusing to raise that boat's rating, we now have a case of having our own rating lowered instead. The Laser 28 is notably absent from the table above.

I think the J27's PHRF rating is now more or less correct, but it is still out of sync with the Laser's rating and the next round of meetings with the club is in my sights. Our new rating means we now have to give the Laser 22 secs per n/mile compared to 31 secs per n/mile on the old rating. So, it is better, but a far cry from where it is supposed to be.

I have advised them that the Laser's rating should be raised from 0.970 to 0.990 - That would in effect mean we give them about 4 secs per nautical mile, which I can live with.

Let the games continue......

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PHRF - A personal experience

Regular readers of this site will know that I have been trying to resolve certain PHRF queries for more than two years at our home club - Royal Cape Yacht Club.

For the unitiated, PHRF stands for Performance Handicap Rating Formula. It is widely used for club racing internationally, with the idea of evening the playing field amongst competitors. It has been an unpopular system amongst most boat owners resulting in a more equitable rating system - IRC (International Rating Council) being used by increasingly large numbers of boat owners for more serious racing events.

However, at RCYC the PHRF system remains the system under which we compete in 90% of our club racing. With that preamble under the belt, I can explain my frustration in getting a PHRF rating problem resolved.

One of our main competitors in Class 2 is a Laser 28 with a modified keel. We have to give this boat almost 2 and a half minutes time allowance per hour, or more accurately stated: 26 seconds per nautical mile.

About a year ago, I made a written submission to the club handicapper that I thought the Laser's PHRF rating was out of sync with it's IRC rating, compared to the rest of the boats at our club holding IRC certificates. I was politely told to buzz off and that I did not understand the mathematical complexities of the two rating systems.

After corresponding with fellow J27 owners in the US, I established that an unmodified Laser 28 is given on average 3 to 6 seconds per nautical mile by a J27.
I then posed this question to the club handicapper and was once again told, that he was not willing to alter any ratings based on my figures.

Rumours and conjecture were running rife at that stage and the fierce competition between the two boats further deteriorated relationships between our respective crews to the point where I felt it necessary to sit down with the owner of the Laser 28 - Thomas Swana - and have a mature and open discussion about the ratings.

That meeting took place about three months ago and went off amicably, with Thomas agreeing that the current 26 secs per n/mile is incorrect. His view was that the J27's rating is too high at 1.005 and should be lowered, whilst my view was that the Laser's rating is too low and should be made higher. Ultimately we agreed that we would like to have a meeting with the club handicapper and made a joint request to have a short meeting with the powers that be.

It took a week for them to tell us that such a request was denied. They felt that a meeting might result in 'acrimony' and that any such request would need to be in writing. This I attended to immediately.

Another two weeks passed and I received a written message via the club that my submission did not contain enough factual data and I was told to supply VPP data, Polar diagrams, Race results, Designers comments and more for both designs. It was a very big task, but I set to it.

A month later I had gathered all the information required and submitted a new request for a rating review. The file weighed almost 2 kgs and was more than an inch thick. It was professionally put together with all the documents indexed and copies of all correspondence filed in date order. I considered it an excellent piece of work and sat back to await the result which I believed would be a foregone (successful) conclusion. The submission was focused on a single point: A J27 gives an unmodified Laser 28 three to six secs per n/mile in the USA - based on a huge geographical area and many samples. At RCYC a J27 gives a modified Laser 28 twenty six secs per n/mile. Logic tells me the boats should be rated more or less equal.

Two weeks later, I received a faxed response via the club, thanking me for my thorough and professional submission, but based on local race results, it was their opinion that both boats had won an equal amount of races and based on that they did not feel that a rating alteration was justified.

Yes, it's true. That was the response.

All the VPP data and the polar diagrams were a waste of time and more importantly, the way the two designs are rated in the USA have been ignored completely. Our club handicapper feels it is of no relevance! This Laser's rating is based on it's own historical performance when it first arrived here. It is the only Laser 28 in South Africa. In other words, if it was poorly sailed initially, it would have attracted a low rating - and still holds that rating today. Seems quite obvious to me ?

I am amazed that the club seems unwilling to accommodate two skippers/boat owners who more or less agree on a problem. It seems so easy (to me) that a compromise of sorts could easily be agreed on with perhaps the J27's rating being lowered slightly and the Laser's rating being increased slightly - end of problem.

I have now requested a hearing with the sailing technical committee.

Imagine: both the J27 and Laser 28 owners agree that there is a big discrepancy with the ratings and the club says they are not changing anything! That's democracy for you.

Watch this space. It is time to be tenacious....

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14th April, 2006
WTNB Winter Series Race 4

So what happened to WTNB Races 1, 2 & 3 ? I haven't got a clue and I really don't know how we missed them. Suffice to say that we decided to use No.4 as a "dust off the cobwebs" race in preparation for the Table Bay Classic Regatta next weekend. We assembled a potent crew for the day in the form of Nic, Greg, Phillip, Waldo, Rodney and myself and everyone was on time. The boat had been given a bit of TLC over the past few weeks having had the gray part of the decks repainted with non-slip and the broken stud on the pulpit was rewelded and refitted. And then the fog rolled in.....

So we traipsed back to the pub to await further instructions and imbibe some local brew only to hear the race committee announce the race cancelled. So much for race No.4 !!!

So after a couple of beers, we took Smackwater Jack out into the main harbour which is almost a mile in length and about 0.3nm wide. We did a few windward/leeward legs in the peasoup thick fog, doing spinnaker changes - Nic managed to get the kite off and new one back up in under 40 seconds - and to everyone's surprise I manged to navigate us into a cul-de-sac and some very strange looking parts of the harbour quite unfamiliar to me. Extraordinary! Imagine getting lost inside the harbour! Anyway - with a little focussed attention on the chart plotter all was revealed. That got me thinking about what could happen if the entire fleet were sailing out in the bay in the fog.

It also got me thinking about setting windward/leeward courses inside the harbour for a half dozen keen skippers on cancelled race days. I'm working on it....

As I have no race report to write, let me at least publicly congratulate our pitman/piano player - Phillip and his lovely wife Jeanine, on their recent marriage. They did things in an unorthodox manner by getting married quietly in court (nah, she's not pregnant); then jetting off to the Maldives to re-do their vows in very much more romantic setting and then feeling thoroughly guilty about it all, came back home and had a third re-run of their vows at a small wine estate near Stellenbosch, for family and friends.

I was asked to officiate at the local event and performed for the first time in my life, a wedding ceremony. What a pleasure it was too. On behalf of all the crew of Smackwater Jack I wish them a happy and contented life together.

Mmmm And I've just checked the forecast for next weekend.
Saturday - 16C with 60% rain. Wind fresh southerly
Sunday - 18C No rain - Wind fresh south east

I see cold people with oilies and beanie's and lots of green water rushing over the foredeck.......bring it on!

---

1st April, 2006
Seniors Race

This annual event attracts a large fleet. I am still too young (by four slender years!) to skipper in this race as the youngest age is a scant 60.

With 48 boats entered, I was approached by the club sailing manager, Ron Keytel, to make my boat available. Many of the regular crew were unavailable but I managed to get Phillip, Nic, Greg and Simon to commit, so we had a good team together for the day.

But first let me bitch about outboard engines. Why, oh why, in this age of technology, do we have to suffer these infernally unreliable machines?

I went to the trouble of buying a brand new Yamaha 5hp long shaft in 2004 (warranty has expired, needless to say). The engine does not work very hard - Maybe 20 minutes per trip, often less. It has taken two full years to log 100 hours. I must admit the little engine has mostly been trouble free, but last week I took it in for it's 100 hour service. At the workshop, the manager raved about the perfect condition the outboard was in.

"Any problems we need to check?" he queried.

"None at all" I replied..."The gear shift is a little sticky. Maybe you can just check that for me?"

I collected the engine and at my first attempt to engage reverse gear in an anchoring operation last Saturday, I was mollified to find no reverse gear at all. Two hours later when we fired the motor up to return to our mooring, we found the reverse gear, but the forward gear was nowhere to be found. We rotated the engine 180 degrees and "reversed" our 2 miles back to the club at a lowly 3 knots at full throttle. Thank heavens there was no wind!

So there you have it. Engine in to the agents working perfectly and it comes back broken. The next fight begins....

(This note added one week later: I took the outboard in to the agents and explained the problem. The next day, they called me to say it was fixed and there would be no charge. Apparently during the service they fiddled with the gear lever as it was a bit stiff, and in the process dislodged the connector rods between the lever and the gearbox. It was a simple adjustment to fix it. They admitted that they should have done a final test before I collected it. It ran perfectly on Wednesday. I have no problem when a business admits it's made a mistake, fixes the problem and apologises. I will grant them cudo's for that)


Back to the racing. The format of the race was a pursuit race, which was actually a very good idea, with a whole bunch of new helmsmen managing strange boats, things might have gotten a little messy on the start line. I moved forward one notch as main trimmer. Greg handled the genoa. Phillip, Simon and Nic remained at their standard stations.

We were scheduled to start midfleet at 1445, exactly 2 minutes behind the Laser 28, together with the other J27 - Hillbilly, an L26 and a Montevideo 43 - the latter which we all agreed needed to be kept well clear of with it's huge wind shadow.

We had the best start of our group and rolled over onto port on the gun, which gave us a fetch to the No.8 mark.

On the downwind leg (no spinnakers were allowed so as not to stress the seniors out too much) we kept our VMG up by sailing high and halfway down we poled out the genoa allowing us to square off to the mark at good speed. We had passed about 10 boats on this leg and our helmsman was beaming from ear to ear.

Greg suggested we change to a bigger headsail, which we unanimously agreed to. The peel change went off without a hitch. At one stage we had both headsails flying in the goosewing formation.

Our tactics were working out nicely as we gained the inside overlap for the mark rounding at Milnerton. Hardening up on port tack allowed us to run over some of the slower boats (at least one of these old skippers tried to luff us!) and then a perfect gap opened up for us to roll back onto starboard for the long beat back to No. 2 mark. Suddenly we were lying second. The Laser 28 was lying 1st and about 500 meters upwind of us. Boats threatening from below us were Al, Zebra, Imex 40 and Golf & Wine - all of them big boats over 40 ft.

We were sailing at a steady 6,2 knots and not trying to point too high. We rounded the No.2 buoy in 4th place behind Ukuzwana (Laser 28); Al (Farr 38) and Zebra (X332).

For the final reach to the finish we were unable to hold off the Imex 40 and JJ Provoyer's new Farr 40, Golf and Wine, crossed two seconds ahead of us, giving us a creditable 6th overall out of a fleet of 48 boats.

This was a most enjoyable sail in near perfect conditions. It was an interesting exercise being main trimmer/tactician and it brought home accurately the importance that the helmsman must communicate with the trimmers constantly. Other than the heeling angle and speed of the boat, the main trimmer has no idea what the helmsman is experiencing.

Ron Keytel had a ball. We have a new J27 convert. Hook, line and sinker. We also had a brief visit from Alan Taylor, who is busy doing his skippers ticket and reported a "no progress" status on Pure Magic.

Phillip figured out why our nav lights kept blowing fuses. Where the wires run through the piping of the pulpit, they had chafed through the plastic exposing the naked wires. The bolt attached under the flange of the pulpit legs had sheared clean off, leaving the unit to balance rather precariously on three of it's legs. So next week, the entire pulpit will have to be removed and taken in to a stainless steel shop for welding/machining. One problem solved - another appears.

The international fireworks display at the V&A has been hugely successful with up to 300 boats anchoring off in the harbour to watch the night sky ablaze with colour. I have seen boats this week that I have never seen leaving the moorings before. This event has flushed the most hardened armchair/chequebook sailors out of their nests and had them venturing out onto the high seas of the inner harbour. Sweet!

Amongst these boat owners, most of them don't have a clue how to anchor, I saw several dropping their anchors until they touched the harbour bottom and that was that. No scope paid out, no depth checks, no snub checks, no transit bearings taken. I guess we can all be thankful it was a calm night. And then I also noticed how few skippers had the correct lights on. Some of them had no lights at all. Some were at anchor with navigation and steaming lights switched on. Now add large doses of booze, the euphoria of the fireworks, 300 vessels - all of this lot careering around the harbour with huge ships coming and going. It is a miracle that there were no incidents.

On our first night out, we had a cruising catamaran anchor directly upwind of us. They soon started drifting down onto us and despite several calls to advise them that they were drifting, they ignored me with a "don't panic!" comment. So we moved instead. Moments later a huge container ship left the Elliot basin and literally shaved past the cat which had drifted into the shipping channel. They were very quiet after that...

And so we roll on......often amused, frequently alarmed, at the state of the average skipper here at 34 degrees south.

Results - Seniors Race

Place Yacht Skipper Age
1 Al (Farr 38) Johan Van Rooyen 60 -70
2 Ukuzwana (Laser 28) Chris Du Toit 60 - 70
3 Zebra (X332) Patrick Fraser 60 - 70
4 Indigo (Imex 40) Dave Abromowitz 60 - 70
5 Golf & Wine (Farr 395) Gerhard Koper 60 - 70
6 Smackwater Jack (J27) Ron Keytel 60 - 70
7 Aquavit (L34) Grant Ballantyne 60 - 70
8 Wallbanger (Simonis 35) Mannetjies Viljoen 70 - 80
9 Fascination Of Power (Fast 42 ) Bertie Reed 60 - 70
10 Nutcracker (Lavranos 2 ton) Dieter Meilke 70 - 80
11 Spilhaus (Swede 55) Teddy Kuttel 60 - 70
12 Majimoto Paul Mare (Farr 40) 60 - 70
13 Auto Atlantic Thunderchild (L52) Wayne Hennings 60 - 70
14 Aurora (Atlantic 49) Mel Hawtrey 60 - 70
15 Pallucci (Simonis 35) Ivor Sindler 60 - 70
16 Touch & Go (Lightwave 395) Geoff Myburgh 70 - 80
17 Apricot (Miura) Bat Tromp 70 - 80
18 Celine Iii (H34) Volker Vierhaus 60 - 70
19 Engels & Volker (Farr 40) Lindsay Birch 60 - 70
20 Cabaray (Stadt 34) Ivar Osberg 70 - 80
21 Hill Billy (J27) Derek Shuttleworth 60 - 70
22 Halali (Impact mod.) Erik Lehmann 80 - 90
23 Ariel (RCOD) Sheriff Saville 80 - 90
24 Madonna (Farr 38) Herman Mory 60 - 70
25 Julie Iii (Miura) Robin Green 70 - 80
26 Vortex (L34) Mike Shannon 80 - 90
27 Solitaire (Compass 47) Molly Warr 70 - 80
28 Morgenster (L34) KEN Van Der WALT 70 - 80
29 Chen (Miura) Charles Paice 80 - 90
30 Endeavour (Sadler 26) Chris Van Lierop 60 - 70
31 Aquasue (Muira) Mike Paddick 60 - 70
32 Derbigum (Montev 43) Bill O' Reilly 60 - 70
33 Fun (RCOD) Dudley Turner 70 - 80
34 Wildgoose (L26) Ernest Chicken 60 - 70
35 Lyra (First 35) Willy Schutten 70 - 80
36 Reaction (RCOD) John Connor 70 - 80
37 Carousel (Ben 390) Hein Skipper 90
38 Corrida (Corrida) Peter Nicolay 60 - 70
39 Lets Go (Buccanneer) ? 60 - 70
40 Sabeza (Stadt 45) Willy Krohn 60 - 70
41 She (Saxon 35) Brian Bradfield 80 - 90
42 Tryer (Halberg) Dirk Jaeger (Nederlands) 70 - 80

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Coming to our Senses

The email below went out to all our regular crew. I hope that other skippers reading this site, follow suit.

Hi SWJack crew,

I've been thinking.

Safety in sailing: In the past two seasons we have now had two man overboard situations. The first one was Andrea. We picked him up in under a minute none the worse for wear in moderate conditions. The second was Simon falling off in the Mykonos race a few weeks ago in severe conditions. He managed to hang onto the lifeline making his recovery relatively easy. We have had many, many more close shaves with people almost going overboard. Next time, our luck might run out...

Imagine for a moment in the first scenario that Andrea had banged his head against the rudder as he went overboard and was unconscious and drowned. How differently would that have affected all of our lives today? A crappy and negative thought? Maybe....but think about it.

Or imagine if Simon had not been able to grab the lifeline as we broached and the boat rolled over on top of him. Goodbye Simon.

In both cases no lifejackets were worn.

On SWJack we have this loose rule that if the breeze goes over 25 knots, we will put lifejackets on. The truth is that we don't do it because we are much too busy sailing the boat. There is no way the crew can involve themselves putting lifejackets on at that stage. Chaps, we have had two chances now. We might not be so lucky the third time. And there will be a 3rd time. We all know it.

So why don't we wear lifejackets? Because they are cumbersome and uncomfortable? Because they make us feel hot? Because they look stupid? Because we dont look "cool" ? Because they inhibit our movement? I don't know...maybe a combination of that lot.

I dont ever want to drown and I am sure none of you want to either or want to go through the mental agony of having to deal with the loss of one of us at sea.
So, with immediate effect, we will be wearing lifejackets in EVERY race from here onwards. Lifejackets must be worn from the point as we exit the harbour and until we return to that same point after racing.

Sailing without a lifejacket is like riding a bike without a helmet....like driving a car without a safety belt...like having sex without a condom.....?

The standard orange lifejackets on the boat are not very nice to wear, so I recommend that you go and see Rodney and invest in a PFD (Personal Flotation Device) unless you already own one. These are comfortable to wear and are quick and easy to put on and remove. If you dont have the bucks for a PFD, you will have to wear the orange throat throttlers presently on board.

There will be no exceptions to this rule. As the skipper I am ultimately responsible for your safety. I know very few people take this precaution on keelboats, but we will be changing the trend and maybe others will follow our example. On SWJ we are always pushing the limits and as a consequence we are exposed to more dangers than others.

I am sure you guys will agree with me on this one.

Cheers,


Trygve

---

25th March, 2006

Flag Officers Team Racing

At the outset, let me say that I feel like a bit of a traitor. This is a J27 website and I do not report on other boats that I get to review and sail as part of my hobby of writing for Sailing Magazine, but I am going to make an exception, because I have never been that fast in any type of sailing vessel before. I was and still am, bowled over by what I experienced.

How does one describe fast:
White-hot; searing; blistering; turbo-charged?
I am still a bit overwhelmed and at a slight loss for words to describe my sail on Saturday afternoon, but let me try whilst it is all still fresh in my mind.

The skipper of the L34 ‘Lapwing’ – Alan Keen – called me on Friday with a request to sail on Lapwing. They were short of crew and since Smackwater Jack had not entered the Team Racing event, would I join them. So I figured, ‘why not?’

Arriving at the club, I was informed that ‘Lapwing’ had a halyard problem, but that the Beneteau 7.5 was available for us to race.

This boat falls under the definition of 'sport boat' or to put it in more simple terminology - it is like a Golf GTi with a V8 supercharged engine.

There were five of us of whom only one has sailed the Beneteau before. We had two 90 kg young guys in their early twenties, Alan Keen, Ralph Thomas (co-owner of ‘Always Well’) and me. We were short of one crew. We were also late and left the dock without certain items –like a GPS, a compass, a knot meter/log. So I figured that it’s just a big dinghy anyway, so why worry – and I was right!

The Beneteau 7.5 – as the name suggests – is 7.5m LOA (about 25 feet). It has negligible accommodation; it is low, flat, wide and sports a completely open cockpit. The keel is a bulb on a slender fin. The whole boat weighs in at around 800 kgs. It is a sprit boat and it is very, very quick downwind. I added that last word, because upwind it feels ordinary. But I think much of that feeling is based on the spectacular downwind sailing this boat provides for its crew.

Ralph understands his boat and once we were motoring out to the start, he quickly briefed the two youngsters as to what was required of them. Alan and I were left to plan the race. We were in the Green team. One of four boats; the other three all being L34’s. At the start area the breeze was very light. We were barely moving. I noticed immediately that the boat stops very quickly, but also picks up speed just as fast. A whole new ball game. Ralph had opted for the bigger of the 2 headsails available. The headsails attach on a furler arrangement with a zipped up luff. Typically French and different.

We picked a starboard start at the pin end. Our start was great. Probably the best in the entire fleet, but a minute later we were lying last. We got completely blanketed by the bigger boats behind us. Up ahead we could all see the south easter waiting to suck us in, so we went for broke and gybed onto port to get away from the pack. It turned out to be a smart move and soon we were all up on the rail and footing to the weather mark at good speed. We passed the bulk of the fleet to round 14th. It doesn’t point high and begs to foot off and sail faster, so from a tactical point of view, one needs to think a little differently as a J27 skipper.

The fun was about to begin. As we eased sheets and bore off onto a broad reach, the little boat started planing with that tell-tale rudder hum. The bowsprit was extended and the genniker was pulled up. I was not quite sure what to expect, but I could see that it was a huge sail. Hundreds of feet of green Dacron just kept on reeling out of the turtle. And then the power came on. It was blowing about 22 knots at the time and increasing. I was expecting a broach, but the helm remained light and fully controllable. There were about three or four hard tugs on the boat – like a huge fish grabbing a heavy line – and we tripled our speed in as many seconds. The big guys were shifted to the back of the boat and I felt like a pilot of a hovercraft. It was as if we didn’t belong in the fleet. The speed was just silly. We reeled the big boats in so fast that I felt (almost) embarrassed for them. My mouth was dry as I waited for the inevitable spin out at those speeds (around 14 to 18 knots) but nothing happened. The helm was perfectly neutral and very easy to keep the boat on course. Up in the lulls and down in the puffs.

Ralph then gave us the bad news. We needed to change down to a smaller headsail as well as reef the main for the upwind leg. He talked one of the young crew through the process with a perfect blend of clarity, patience and urgency. At the back I was very nervous having a 90 kg bowman right up at the sprit, but although I could feel the difference in handling, it did not present any real problems. Once the headsail was downscaled, the main was reefed, which was a painless and quick affair. Pretty impressive crew management to my mind.

There were only two boats left to catch – a Fast 42 and a Lavranos 52. We had no idea where the mark was and hoped fervently the other boats had GPS’s on the go. With our higher angle, we were getting close to the beach and needed to gybe. Once again, Ralph explained the procedure. As I took the boat gradually down to a dead run the speed bled off and the genniker collapsed, which is when it was hauled over to the new side – Only then did we gybe the main as I popped the little boat onto the new heading and got her heated up back onto a plane. We were back up to 14-18 knots very quickly. With 200 meters to go to the mark, I suggested we drop the genniker to avoid a shambles, as we still had to do another gybe. So they snuffed it. We went from hero to zero with the speed dropping by 10 knots at least. It felt like someone had thrown an anchor out the back. Suddenly the mark felt miles away at such a (relatively) low speed, and we became like the other boats around us. Ordinary!

On the beat, I tried to get into a groove and soon found that the boat liked the traveler well down in the stiff breeze and the blade not sheeted too tight. I have no idea what speed we were doing, but it felt like about 5.8 to 6 knots. We worked our way towards the beach and the flatter water where the boat was much happier. It is surprisingly dry for such a small boat. I had full oilies on and only had a few drops on me. The bigger boats reeled us in on the upwind leg and we steadily lost places, dropping from 3rd at the downwind mark, to about 8th at the weather mark.

We still had the downwind final leg to the finish to complete and readied the boat for the hoist. Meanwhile, as is the norm in that corner of Table Bay, the breeze had cranked itself up to 30 knots. Nothing, but nothing I have done in my life could have prepared me for the next reach.

Turbo chargers on; after burners on; standby; GO!

What an unbelievable sensation. We went faster and faster and faster. I had that feeling that I was propelling myself into oblivion – that the entire boat and rig would disintegrate into a million pieces – but still we went on. We passed to leeward of all the boats ahead of us in a blur of motion. I couldn’t see much. There was an invisible giant fireman standing with a huge hose shooting tons of solid water over us. We were probably peaking at around 22 knots. It was terrifying, frightening, exhilarating. Despite the tons of water pouring over me, my mouth was a dry as a cork. Then suddenly the helm went totally lifeless. I thought it had broken off, but I think it had aerated itself and lost its bite on the water. Ralph at that same time dumped the genniker sheet and we stopped. We had also fallen well off course and reached the end of the wind zone. The wind went from 30 knots to nothing and suddenly we were scrambling to shake the reef out and heel the boat to leeward, as we inched painfully towards the finish line.

We finished in 7th place on corrected time out of 20 boats.
We were the best placed in the Green Team
The Green Team came 4th out of 5 (Not very good! But one of our team retired accounting for the high score)


Man, that was an awesome sail. My entire definition of speed has changed. I have moved on to another dimension. I now know why this boat and the Mumm 30 won Div 1 & 2 PHRF on the downwind run to Mykonos. They would simply be untouchable downwind. However, we did still beat them on corrected time, as they carry a hefty rating penalty for such huge speed potential. So I will stick with my J27 as a good all rounder.

The good news is: Smackwater Jack is not for sale.

---

22nd March, 2006
Fun Twilight Race
Cancelled due to excessive winds

All these years living in the Mother City, I have never known such a windy summer and more so, the almost uncanny ability of the Cape Doctor to be in town on Wednesdays.

In 2006 alone we have had 9 twilight races on the calendar of which we have only been able to sail 4. I think we are all happy to see the end of this summer! To still have gale force south easterlies in March is very unusual.

Well, that brought the prizegiving for the end of the summer series forward by an hour. I had sent several emails out getting opinions from experts on the discard clause in the club's Sailing Instructions (discussed in the race report below this one) and based on that information decided not to raise any further objections or lodge any protests or requests for redress, based on the ambigiously worded instructions.

So, how things finally panned out for us, came as quite a big surprise (or rather a shock) as with the one discard on four races rule being applied, we plummeted from 1st Overall to 3rd.

It had not even occurred to me that the Beneteau 7,5 - 'Always Well' might beat us, but the results for their 4 races showed 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 6th versus our 2nd, 2nd, 2nd, 3rd. - which left us on a dead tie for 2nd place, with the tie-breaker going their way.

There was a second set of prizes for the joint results of both the Community Chest and NSRI Series together. Would you believe it? We had a 3rd in both series, giving us a total of 6 points. 'Always Well' had a 2nd and a 4th to also make 6 points. That's right...Once again we dropped a position because of the way the discards work. A 2nd and a 4th beats two 3rds. Gee...what tough luck!

Well, I guess we shouldn't complain. Looking back on the season, we had our high and low points, but we were more on the podium, than not. Low point of the season was Table Bay Week and the highlight was undoubtedly last month's Mykonos whitewash.

I recall that it took me 7 attempts before I won my first national title. Those seven attempts included 5 second places. I believe if one tries hard enough and long enough, one will ultimately succeed. What one can read into these results, is that we are still some rungs down the ladder in terms of attaining perfection in our performance. To look on the positive side, the nice thing about not being first, is it gives us something to strive for and makes us hungrier for victory. That is a pretty strong motivating force.

We now take a few weeks break as the autumn season does not offer much competitive sailing and next Wednesday night we will take Smackwater Jack out to the outer harbour, suitably laden with beer, wine and some snacks, to enjoy the spectacular international fireworks display.

I would like to congratulate 'Sensation' on their victory.

---

15th March, 2006
NSRI Twilight Race No. 8

Race in a nutshell:
Position (IRC): 2nd
Position (PHRF): 3rd
Position Line: 3rd
Total Entries: 37 (Spin 7 + Class1 10 + Class2 20)
Ave Speed: 2.9 kts
Max Speed: 6.8 kts
Distance: 7.44 nm.
Time: 02:32.34

Weather Forecast:
SW Partly Cloudy with 30% rain later
Wind: Moderate SW
Baro: 1008hPa
Temp: 17/24C
Weather Actual: Wind NW 0-5knots and SE 0-12knots with calm transition zone around the start/finish area

Sails: Full Main, No.1 Genoa, .75oz North Mamba Spinnaker
Crew:
Trygve Roberts (Helm)
Rodney Tanner (Main)
Waldo Zevenster (Genoa)
Phillip Rentschler (Halyards)
Greg Harrowsmith (Mast)
Nic Baigrie (Bow)
Total: 505kg

Light airs in Cape Town? Yep - every once in a while, we get the opposite of the Cape Doctor. Last night's race had the peculiar characteristics of two opposing wind forces (mmmm, the word force is perhaps out of context with breeze under 2 knots) over the race area and a massive calm zone in the middle. It caused untold confusion on the start line with many skippers automatically wanting to head off in a southerly direction. Those would be the same skippers that guess which course we are racing based on the wind direction and don't actually listen to the VHF for the course announcement. And so we found ourselves sailing in a northerly direction with several boats starting in the opposite direction. That got me wondering.....If two boats are approaching each other head on, both close hauled on starboard tack (impossible you say?) - who has right of way? The boat sailing the correct course or the boat on the wrong side of the line?
That is the situation we found ourselves in.

Our mastman, Craig Tarr, once again had to drop out of sailing at the last minute. We were fortunate to get Greg Harrowsmith – an experienced L26 sailor on board for this race – the final of the NSRI Twilight series. Whilst we did not need Greg’s considerable mass in the ultra light conditions, his knowledge and feel for small keelers soon became apparent.

The Race Committee’s course announcement over the VHF was distorted with a lot of background noise which meant many skippers got the course wrong. My motto for a light wind race is to stick at the end where the most breeze is and not to worry about line bias and the like. There was precious little wind and most boats were only just moving or completely stationary at the gun. Many boats were approaching the line from the wrong side as they had not heard the course correctly. We were one of the first boats over the line right near the pin end and were soon in the lead and in the rather prestigious company of the 46 ft. IRC optimized, fully carbon boat -‘HiFidelity’

We went up to the weather mark still hot on their heels leaving the rest of the fleet far behind, but as we have so often found in light and patchy winds, that such a big lead, can and does, frequently get eroded rapidly. This time it was the L34, ‘Lapwing’ that found a small channel of breeze and wiggled in between Hifidelity and ourselves close to the weather mark. That is how we rounded, with the J27, “Hillbilly” in 4th place.

Every one of us went for a gybe hoist, except Hillbilly, who did a bearaway and sailed off on a port reach. On the south side of the start area a light south easterly was teasing the Class 1 and 2 fleets, whilst a ghostly whisper of a north wester prevailed in patchy streaks on the north side. Two diametrically opposing breezes with a huge calm patch in the middle. There seemed little point in sailing into the hole and hoping for a chance of luck, so we quickly took the kite down, gybed and went over to the port side of the course to join Hillbilly, who had overtaken us. We had better speed than them without our spinnaker, so I headed higher and cleared their transom, to put us the furthest boat on the port side of the course. It was a big gamble giving away such a hard fought lead.

We put the big spinnaker back up and maintained 5 knots as we quickly caught up to the front runners, who had all gone back towards the harbour wall. One or two of the cruiser classes ahead of us had found the south easterly breeze and were pointing in a completely different direction to us – they were beating and we were broad reaching.

There was a mass of stationary boats parked in the middle. The trick was to keep our momentum going and have a smooth transition from the north wester into the south easter. Somehow we managed to find the right channels and we picked up a nice 12 knot south easterly which lifted us virtually directly towards the mark. It was all smiles on Smackwater Jack, as we had dropped every boat, except Hifidelity, very far behind us – more than a mile at a guess. We had sailed a much longer, but considerably faster course than our opposition. However, their obvious frustration at our huge lead was soon to be avenged.

We rounded Paarden island mark with the sure knowledge that we had an unassailable lead and merely had to sail conservatively to secure a Class 2 victory. The hole that had trapped everyone else was still lying in wait for us. Our boat speed started falling off less than a half mile to the finish line, and we had to decide to go left, right or up the middle. Our considerable and experienced collective brains trust in democratic fashion agreed we should go middle to right. Our course had been shortened, so all we had to do was cross the finish line.

Predictably the hole swallowed us up and we did one of those neat parking jobs, registering a new record in mediocrity of 0.0 knots. Every racing skipper will know and understand those feelings of utter despair as the entire fleet arrive from astern in fresh breeze, which like some idiotic personal demon, has taken a personal dislike to your boat, and sends the entire fleet in all directions around you – looking like there is a plague on board, the way they avoid sailing into your private and cursed windless hole – and drive right over your boat, to finish ahead of you, over the line – And then, to add insult to injury, you still have to give them time as well. Damn! – We only had about 80 meters to go!

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

Somehow or other, we still managed to finish in 3rd place. The lesson here is: Never celebrate a victory till you are over the line.

Motoring back into the harbour in the darkness saw the nav lights blow a fuse. Replaced – blown again – and that repeated twice, so there must be a short somewhere. A project for the quiet month coming up to keep me out of mischief.

So, that was Race No.8 of the NSRI Twilight Series, of which we only sailed four. The rest were all blown out. Sensation did not race last night, so scored max points, leaving us as the overall winners of the series. Unless the club decides to allow a discard? In which case we will come in as runners up. Watch this space.

There is not much happening over the next five to six weeks, so Smackwater Jack will be treated to some TLC and new sheets. The third J27 “Pure Magic” has arrived and is on her trailer at the Elliot basin. I will assist Allan in surveying the boat thoroughly this weekend, ensuring that the boat is up to the rigours of the Cape Town weather. Pure Magic was originally imported from the States and was the first J27 to grace South African waters.

As a start and after discussions with the other two J27 owners, we have agreed to share knowledge, crew and all resources between us in an effort to raise the standards of J27 sailing to the highest levels possible. Whilst such a move would gall most people, I believe it is a bold step forward and will go a long way towards ensuring close and competitive racing amongst us; it will add to the value of our boats; and ensure we retain these three boats in our racing fleet in Cape Town and encourage our fleet to grow.

It is interesting to note that we were less than a minute slower than HiFidelity on IRC Corrected.

OK - Back to the light wind drawing board....

21.3.2006 - I checked the sailing instructions on the RCYC website and found this ambigious statement:

SCORING.
The Low Point scoring system of Appendix A4 will apply.
When three races have been completed, a boat's series score will be the total of her race scores.
Double points may be awarded for a long distance race of a Series. Half of these points of the long distance race may be used as the discard, provided 3 other races have been sailed. When four or more races have been completed, a boat's series score will be the total of her race scores excluding one worst score, for every five races sailed.
Any One Design Class having more than 5 entries, may record Class results as well

OK - So what does that actually mean? Do we get a discard on four or five races?

I brought this to the attention of the race committee and no-one is prepared to make a definitive decision, except to agree with me that the wording is terrible. What the experts say is that the INTENT of the wording is that there is one discard allowed after four races.

In this case, we get a 2nd for the series. I guess fair is fair: Sensation did get more 1st places than us and morally deserve the 1st overall position.

Spinnaker Course C1 Start: 17h50 wind variable, 10 knots, calm
Sail #
Class Yacht & Skipper Club TCF
IRC TCC Finished Elapsed Corrected
Corr IRC Place

SA 18881
Welborn 46 Hi Fidelity
de Villiers/Dawson 1.3
1.241 19 0 51 1 10 51 1 32 7
1 27 55 1
1
SA 702
Charger 33 FTI Flyer
K Mattison 0.995 19 24 29 1 34 29 1 34 1 2
SA204
J27 Smack Water Jack
T Roberts 1.005
0.938 19 24 28 1 34 28 1 34 56
1 28 37 3
2
010
L 34 Lapwing
A Keen 1.015
0.969 19 24 33 1 34 33 1 35 58
1 31 37 4
4
SA 198
J27 Hillbilly
P Hill 1.005
0.937 19 26 47 1 36 47 1 37 16
1 30 41 5
3
SA 3141
First 7.5 Always Well
Burger/Thomas 1.02
1.024 19 23 24 1 47 12 1 49 20
1 49 46 6
6
SA 4242
Fast 42 Tenacity
E Stern 1.17
1.111 19 25 24 1 35 24 1 51 37
1 45 59 7
5

---

3rd/4th March, 2006
MYKONOS OFFSHORE REGATTA

Race 1 in a nutshell:
Position Overall All Classes (Corrected Time): 1st
Position Overall IRC All Classes: 1st
Position IRC Class 2: 1st
Total Entries: 57

Ave Speed: 8.6 kts
Max Speed: 16.6 kts
Distance: 65.17 nm.
Time: 07:13.59

Weather Forecast: Fine
Wind Fresh South-East ( 20-24 knots)
Temp. 16/24C
Deep Sea swell: 5.0m SW
Baro 1020hPa
Weather Actual: Wind 25 to 35 knots Swell was up to 8 meters in places. The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Course: Start No.10 (P) – Paarden Island (P) – Mykonos (P)
Sails: Full Main, No.2 Genoa, .75oz Mamba Spinnaker

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Mike Rothenburg (Main), Andrew James (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow), (Total: 480kg)

Picture yourself in waves 6 to 8 meters high; a 35 knot gusting wind; pounding surf on rocky headlands on one side and an unforgiving cold Atlantic on the other. The ocean is angry. You have been sailing for almost 7 hours on the very edge of control. You have reeled in far bigger boats from behind. You have your biggest sails up and now you have to gybe to make the angle through the reefs into Saldanha Bay. You will only get one opportunity to get it right. You have three crew on board who have never sailed a J27 before. And then it all goes horribly wrong………..

This is why I do this sport. This race will embed itself in my mind forever. It was everything in terms of boat handling, skill, tactics and pure adrenaline charged super fast surfing and planing. Our competitors ranged from super maxis to large catamarans, heavy cruisers and a variety of other racing craft- all of them bigger than us. Fifty Seven in total. And we beat them all. What an endorsement of this boat we all respect and appreciate.

Last year we won the IRC Class 2 segment of this regatta with a 1st in the Distance Race and a 2nd in the Pursuit Race. A month ago, my hopes of securing another victory in the 2006 Mykonos Offshore Regatta started to fade, when Rodney, our main trimmer, told me he could not make it due to work commitments. That started a scramble trying to find a suitable replacement. Two weeks later, Chris – our bowman – announced he was off to London on a holiday. Phew! Two key crewmembers down. Where would I find a good bowman?

Our backup bowman, Craig Tarr, was also not able to participate owing to work pressure. All my calls to suitably qualified crew drew blanks. This was becoming a serious dilemma. The final straw was when Waldo, our genoa/spinnaker trimmer, phoned to advise he had to rush off urgently to his grandfather’s funeral in Johannesburg. I came close to calling it a day at that stage and seriously considered withdrawing from the event. But it’s not in my nature to give up.

I had sent an email, requesting crew, to my old club at Saldanha and was pleasantly surprised to get three responses. One was from Mike Rothenburg, so I asked him to join up with us at very short notice. Mike is an experienced sailor, perhaps more cruising than racing oriented – also a bit on the light side at 65 kgs – but more importantly he is retired and he was available. I would decide later where to put him on the boat. I shifted Nic, our back –up mast man to do bow and Nic asked a school friend of his, Andrew James, to join up. Andrew is a dinghy sailor, aged 17, weighs in at solid 92 kgs and keen as mustard but totally new to the world of J27’s. Andrea Giovanini – the skipper of our arch rivals – The L34 Sensation – and who I taught to sail as a youngster in Mirror dinghies, asked me if I could accommodate a varsity friend of his, Simon Penso, on our boat. Simon is a hefty 95kgs and would go some lengths in helping to keep the boat flat. It was definitely going to be an exercise in team building on the spot.

But things weren’t all gloom and doom. The weather forecast indicated a fresh south easter for the first day, a moderate southerly for the second day and a light northerly for the return (non-racing) trip the following day. All in all, an imminently suitable J27 forecast!

All the advance planning had been done with food, accommodation, excess baggage and lifts taken care of. We met at 0630 at RCYC with a fresh south easter already kicking in. I had sent all the crew an email containing these words: “….please respect your fellow crew members by being punctual…” And there I was stuck in the traffic on the N1 at 0615! I took my medicine like a man, apologized and imposed a self inflicted penalty of the first round at the Mykonos pub.

The breeze was touching on 20 knots at the start area, so we bravely went for the No.2 and a pin end start. At the gun, we had the controlling position at the pin doing match racing with Rick Nankin in the 65 foot “Warrior” – the latter which took off up the beat like a scalded cat (monohull) leaving us with fairly clean air to sail in. Our boat speed was there at 6.2 knots, but for some inexplicable reason, the south easter was not producing the usual lift up to Paarden Island. This meant having to put in two tacks to lay the mark. Those that had started at the wall end, had benefited. Already we were playing catch-up.

Hillbilly – Peter Hill’s J27 – had done just that and had rounded the mark a good 300 meters ahead and were away on the broad reach flying their small yellow spinnaker, which I now eyed and decided we would go for broke and put up our biggest spinnaker. That turned out to be the first of several race winning decisions. Considering our new crew, we had a fairly smooth hoist and soon had our boat speed settling in around 8,5 knots. Not really fresh enough conditions to make the J27 get up and fly, but it is a long race at 65 nautical miles and the weather seldom remains static along this coastline. It invariably builds as the day gets hotter.
Hillbilly was sailing a deeper angle, whilst we were sailing for a better VMG at a slightly higher angle. We were closing them down slowly – perhaps slower than what I would have liked, but we were definitely closing. After an hour we had drawn level and had about half a mile separating the two boats beam on. Hillbilly then made their first mistake. They changed course to angle up towards us to prevent us taking the lead. This they did effectively, except they placed themselves right into our wind shadow. From there it was only a matter of a few minutes before we powered over them to windward and got ourselves 50 meters ahead. The surf was huge breaking on the beach to our right near the nuclear power station, so I figured that gave me two good reasons to stick in a gybe. It was a good one, with young Nic rallying to his new responsibility on the bow. The boat felt great on the new gybe and we quickly opened up a 200 meter lead over Hillbilly. From there, our lead increased steadily until Hillbilly appeared as a blip on the horizon. Later they changed to a bigger spinnaker and made up some of the lost distance on us, but it was too little, too late.

As we headed up the West Coast, the breeze gradually built from 18 knots to a full 35 knots as we neared South Head – the entrance to Saldanha Bay. Flying our biggest spinnaker, we were doing 8 knots for the first two hours, then 9, then, 10, then 11 and by Dassen Island with very big swells running in a SSW direction, we started to get our little boat planing almost continuously. We started reeling the bigger boats in from behind and were sailing mostly above 14 knots for the final two hours.
We reeled in the first of three L34’s. Then came the 41 foot Avanti flying a huge masthead spinnaker. We passed them doing almost double their speed. Smackwater Jack had those perfect conditions that she revels in. The new crew were astonished at our speeds, which were already getting into the 15 knot range behind Dassen. This is the same stretch of coast, where we set up our speed record of 16.4 knots in 2003. I had positioned the crew weight carefully around the cockpit until I felt the helm was giving the best response. One of the problems with such enormous waves (up to 8 meters) is that when they catch up from behind, (the water speed from behind is faster than the boat speed) they induce huge amounts of lee-helm and make the helmsmans work a tough stretching and grunting job. Unless one has a main trimmer who can compensate and anticipate those windward rolls in the troughs, it’s going to feel like you have done 5000 bench presses by the end of the trip.

Our sections of full on planing between 14 and 16 knots were now sustained at well over 30 seconds without our speed ever dropping below 10 knots for the last 4 hours of the race. Somewhere along that same stretch of coast, we did it again and recorded a speed of 16.6 knots on the GPS – a new record. The old record was attained on a two sail (Main and No. 2) beam reach in smaller, but steeper waves in a 30 knot wind during a delivery trip in 2003.

Then it was time for that fateful gybe. The breeze was 35 knots. I had been talking for a while to the new crew about the upcoming gybe. I had told them we would be going into the gybe down the face of a wave to reduce the apparent wind and that the whole exercise would have to be executed with precision or we would all be swimming. Perhaps I shouldn’t have put the fear of God into them. We made two mistakes. Simon did not quite get his timing right to move over to the new side and Mike could not/did not haul the main over. So we stalled.

The wind filled the spinnaker, the boom crashed violently over, and we capsized instantaneously. It was like being in Laser dinghy. I actually heard the mainsail smack into the water. The worst broach we have ever done. Simon catapulted over the lifelines into the sea and went under the boat. There was pandemonium. I was yelling for someone to trip the spinnaker halyard and eventually in what seemed like an eternity, a hand reached the clutch and the halyard went humming through the clutch and the kite mercifully lay on the waves. We had Simon holding desperately onto the downwind lifelines, still in the water and this was preventing the boat from righting itself. He weighs 95 kgs and he was giving the keel some stiff competition.

To be fair, I was scared out of my wits. I was thinking: “This is it. This is that big dreaded moment. We are going to sink. No time to get flares or even a lifejacket”

The water level was already covering the instruments on the coachroof. And then the boat slowly righted herself. Man, oh man….The astonishing thing is that very little water went into the cabin and Nic had the foresight to have kept the front hatch closed.

Then I started assembling some level of order. Phillip grabbed Simon by the arms and hauled him back on board. The boat loved the new weight in the right place and with a bit of mainsheet trimmed, I could turn the boat in the right direction and start building some speed.

Meanwhile Nic had hauled the sodden spinnaker back on board. We then hoisted the No.2 up and got it poled out, as we regained our composure. That was hairy! Very bloody hairy!

Despite the reduced sail power, we were clocking 11 knots, and I thought: “What the hell – that’s quick enough for me for today”

It was only a short sail down the channel between the mainland and Jutten Island, when we would be beam reaching across the bay to the finish at Club Mykonos. Around Salamander Point, the water was flat, and we took the pole down and sheeted the genny on the leeward side. With all the crew fully hiked out, we were able to get the speed up to 11.5 knots sustained on the flatter water of the bay. We crossed the finish line in a blur of spray to win outright on corrected time covering all the classes (57 boats) including the multihulls. We also came 1st in Class 2 IRC. The overall win was a bonus I would not have dreamed possible. What a magnificent boat.

I had felt something odd in the tiller during the last hour of the race. Almost as if the timber had cracked. There was an uncomfortable looseness in the helm. At the dock, I did a careful check and established that all three of the main bolts holding the tiller to the rudder had worked their way loose during the race. I could turn the nuts with my fingers! We were very fortunate that the nuts did not rattle right off. I don't even want to think about what the consequences would have been. I will be putting "Lock Nuts" on those three bolts next week. I am assuming that the nuts worked their way loose from the constant vibration we get between the keel and rudder when we are planing.

Phillip and I in particular, were like zombies by 8pm. I felt like I had played three rugby matches back to back. I was in a dreamless sleep by 9pm.

OVERALL WINNERS OF THE DISTANCE RACE ON CORRECTED TIME: J27 SMACKWATER JACK

LINE HONOURS: WARRIOR (SIMONIS 65)

1ST IRC CLASS 2: SMACKWATER JACK

IRC CLASS 2

SA204 Smackwater Jack Trygve Roberts J27 0.938 1 15 47 59 7 17 59 6 50 49 1
SA198 HillBilly Peter Hill J27 0.937 1 15 55 17 7 25 17 6 57 14 2
SA2103 Avanti Harry Brehm Vickers 41 0.997 1 15 59 18 7 29 18 7 27 57 3

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Race 2 in a nutshell:
Position Overall All Classes (Corrected Time): 5th
Position Overall IRC All Classes: 1st
Position IRC Class 2: 1st
Total Entries: 57

Ave Speed: 6.1 kts
Max Speed: 11.6 kts
Distance: 24.21 nm.
Time: 03:57.17

Weather Forecast: Fine
Wind: Light Westerly
Temp. 14/26C Deep Sea swell: 2.5m SW
Baro 1022hPa
Weather Actual: Wind West 5 knots becoming 10 knots becoming south south west 15 knots. The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Course: Start No.Myk Start(P) – Donkergat (P) – Ore jetty (S) – No.2 Channel marker (P) – Dial Rock (P) – No. 1 Channel marker (P) – No.4 Channel marker (P) – North Bay mark (P) – Jutten Island (P) – East Buoy (P) – North East Buoy (P) – Donkergat (P) – Mykonos Finish (P)
Sails: Full Main, No.1 & 2 Genoas, .75oz Mamba Spinnaker

Good events don’t happen by accident. They are meticulously planned. Hats off to RCYC and Club Mykonos (with a little help from the weather gods) for making this one of the top events in the Cape sailing calendar. The large entry (57), despite about 20 competitive boats still not back from Salvador, is a clear indicator that this is what sailors want. The Mykonos Regatta has grown in stature and now stands on the brink of eclipsing everything else on offer in the Western Cape. This regatta seems to satisfy most people’s needs in that it consists of a downwind race on day 1 and a pursuit race around Saldanha Bay on day 2, leaving one with the option of returning to Cape Town on the Sunday, or leaving the boat at the Mykonos marina for a week or two. Berthing is free and Club Mykonos offers sailors a reduced rate for accommodation. It is a good example of a win-win scenario.

Saturday morning was beautiful. The bay was that sparkling turquoise colour with a whisper of breeze from the west. New plans, new strategies were going to be needed. The pursuit race was postponed by an hour to allow the breeze to fill in. By 1030 the first of the small boats were off. The two J27’s were scheduled to start at 1126. My watch and the bridge’s watch were 1 minute out, which made us embarrassingly late for the start by almost 30 seconds. Hillbilly must have had the same problem, as they were also late, but not as late as us. We crossed the line behind Hillbilly. Strangely, they did not attempt to point high and left us with a perfect gap to sneak through to weather, and we were away – getting immediately into the lead. We were sailing at 6.2 knots on the beat in 8 knots of breeze.

The weather mark had been set in the channel near Donkergat – right where there was no wind. Everyone sailed into this hole . When we arrived there must have been about 25 boats lying stationary near the mark. I had one of my crew stand as high as possible to check for where the breeze was on the glassy water and based on that information, tacked away from the buoy and remained in the breeze. We sailed a long loop around the boats and rounded the weather mark from an upwind position in 2nd place behind a Sweet Pea. A minute later, we were in the lead and heading off for the ore jetty. Hot on our heels were the two L34’s Sensation and Lapwing. Our close reaching speed was 7.5 knots.

The course follows a series of (confusing to many) buoys in the harbour. Thank goodness for our chart plotter on board! Most of the small boats had been eliminated by parking in the hole for too long, but we could see our lead being steadily whittled away by Sensation. By Dial Rock, we were still in the lead, but only just. On the long beat out of the bay, Sensation got ahead, mainly because we had stayed on the port tack for too long and ended up having to reach past the mussel beds.

Going into North Bay, it was still Sensation, Smackwater Jack, and Lapwing taking the three front places. Another long beat to Jutten Island saw no changes in the leader board. Despite the lumpy offshore conditions, we were still able to sustain 6.2 knots on the beat. At last I have found this extra gear on the boat that has eluded me for so long. The secret is in the setup of the genoa. We are all oversheeting these boats. Crack off a notch and sail them fat.

The breeze remained light to moderate. A short spinnaker reach past Salamander Point and on to East Buoy, followed by a gybe and another downwind leg to North east Buoy, still saw no changes in the order. However, the big boats were starting to make an appearance astern.

Halfway up the upwind leg to the Donkergat buoy, the 46ft "Hifidelity" overtook Lapwing and a little later, ourselves. We were in 3rd place, but there was still a reasonably safe margin for us to remain in that position. After a brief tacking duel with Lapwing, we came out about 5 boat lengths in the lead at the mark, only to find we had a Genoa sheet overwind. We had no choice but to let Lapwing go into 3rd place, as we sorted the problem out. The final broad reach down to the finish seemed to be agonizingly slow as a whole batch of big boats had rounded the top mark and were hot on our heels – the closest of the bunch was the Fast 42 “Tenacity” and they managed to just pip us at the line by about 1 meter. That gave us a 5th overall and 1st in IRC Class 2.

The prize giving was fashionably delayed with the following boats taking the honours:

BAY RACE OVERALL POSITIONS

Sail no Name Design

005 Sensation L34
SA18881 Hi Fidelity Welbourne 46
SA010 Lapwing L34
SA4242 Tenacity Fast 42
SA204 Smackwater Jack J27
SA2954 Sheshisa Bavaria
SA765 PG Glass Majimoto II Farr 40
SA1278 Wallbanger Simonis 35 modified
SA250 Freedom Farr 38
SA1800 Warrior Simonis 60 mod
24 Six Pack L34
US43434 Spilhaus Swede 55
SA2127 Monkeys in the Mist Jaz 30
SA1030 Beluga L 50 mod
018 Aquavit L34
SA011 Tally Ho L34
Amberloui L34
SA2103 Avanti Vickers 41
SA037 Spectrum L34
SA198 Hill Billy J27
GBR2183 Sunstone One off
SA3113 Golf & Wine Farr 395
SA3141 Allways Well First 7.5
SA1178 Touch & Go Lightwave395
SA1146 Cathy R Compass 47
016 Ebb Tide L34
042 Sea Minor L34
SA1203 Scatterling Simonis 35r mod
SA2322 Quick Silver Hobie 33
SA2018 Cabaray Stadt 34 Steel hull mod
SA1730 Phantom Mira
SA130 Apricot Muira
46 Eternity Stadt 23
SA2278 Sirroco Jeanneau 36
SA648 Gunsmoke Sweet Pea
SA546 Nauti Bouy Petersen 33*
034 L'Muncha L26
SA1011 Carousel Beneteau 390*
SA071 Panasea Sweet Pea
SA2032 Waka Waka vdStadt40
SA33 Julie III Miura
SA893 Chen Miura
SA1535 Seagull Stadt 34
SA3166 Smart One Radical Bay 8000
SA 541 Drago Sweet Pea
SA1330 Easy Beat Sadler 26
SA702 FTI Flyer Charger 33
SA160 Grace H23
AS2996 Reaction RCOD
SA3197 Romano Spirit 28
SA978 Aurora Atlantic
FBYC Marty Alessa Mauritius 45 Ketch
Rhapsody Aldis 39 Multihull
RSA 447 Running With Scissors Mini Transat
Setsea Scape 39
Ned 352/438 Tryer Halbeg Rassy
47 Vortex L34

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MYKONOS 2006
Overall FINAL Results Races 1 & 2 (No Discard)

CLASS 2 IRC CLASS 2
1 SA204 Smackwater Jack Trygve Roberts J27
3 SA 2103 Avanti Harry Brehm Vickers 41
2 SA198 HillBilly Peter Hill J27

CLASS 1 IRC CLASS 1
1 SA 18881 Hi Fidelity Sindler/de Villiers Welbourn 46
2 SA4242 Tenacity Errol Stern Fast 42
3 SA 2322 Quick Silver Mike Klostermann Hobie 33
4 RSA 2954 Sheshisa Rabie / Essenbach Bavaria
5 SA1800 Warrior R Nankin/P Gutsche Simonis
5 SA 1030 Beluga Paarman/Hendricks Lav 50

CLASS 1 Club Handicap 1
1 SA 250 Freedom CP vd Merwe Farr 38
1 SA 2127 Monkies in Mist Bernard Diebold Jaz 30
3 SA 765 PG Glass Majimoto Birch/Maree Farr 40
2 SA 1278 Wallbanger Brian Gardener Simonis 35
3 US 43434 Spilhaus 3 Teddy Kuttel Swede 55
4 SA1178 Touch n Go Alec Smith Lightwave 395
4 SA 3113 Golf & Wine JJ Provoyeur Farr 395
5 SA 1203 Scatterling R Marsh Simonis 35
6 SA 978 Aurora Mel Hawtrey Atlantis 49

CLASS 2 Club Handicap 2
1 005 Sensation Munnik/Giovanni
2 024 Six Pak Patrick Holloway
3 010 Lapwing Burger/Keen
4 SA 3141 All ways Well Lance Burger
5 011 Tally Ho John Waller
6 037 Spectrum Andy James
7 018 Aquavit Phil Flockton
8 Amberluio Martin Schultz
9 EbbTide M & F Whitworth
10 GBR 2183 Sunstone T Jackson
11 SA1730 Phantom Tom Cornell
12 042 Sea Minor Danny Price
13 SA130 Apricot Bat Tromp
14 SA 1146 Cathy R J Rabe
15 SA 2018 Cabaray Ray Mathews
16 SA33 Julie III Robin Green
17 SA 2278 Sirocca Mike Phillips
18 SA 2032 Waka Waka Thinus Groenewald
19 SA546 Nauti Buoy Theo vd Hoek
20 SA 1011 Carousel Scott/Fox
21 SA893 Chen Ian McGuigan
22 SA 1535 Seagull H McLachlan
23 RSA 2996 Reaction T Boecker
24 SA 1330 Easy Beat M Peper
25 SA 702 FTI Flyer Keith Mattison
26 NED 438 Tryer D Jaeger
27 Marty Allessa Ray Duyck
28 RSA 447 Running with Sciccors Matthew Thomas
29 047 Vortex Robin Lapping

CLASS 3 Club Handicap 3
1 46 Eternity van Breda Stadt 23
2 SA648 Gunsmoke Mark Shrosbree Sweet Pea
3 034 L'Muncha N Black L26
4 071 Pana Sea H Traut Sweet Pea
5 SA 3197 Romano Spirit 28
6 SA 541 Drago Smurf Laanghoff Sweet Pea
7 SA 160 Grace H 23

CLASS MULTI HULL
1 SA 3166 Smart One Klaus Schied Radical Bay 8000
2 Rhapsody Tom Figl Aldis 39
3 Set Sea Greg Davies Scape 39




After the prize giving, we were treated to some great music by a live band (of old ballies) and I must admit, their renditions of Bad Company’s songs were excellent and especially their version of Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta love” was brilliant. (This is a sailing report, not a music evaluation, so I will leave it at that).

It would be remiss of me not to mention Sensation’s crew providing the ladies with some dubious entertainment in the form of a Full Monty style strip show after they (deservedly) got plastered in celebration of their 1st place in the L34 Class Nationals.

Wonderful regatta! Well done to the sponsors and organizers. This event will keep gaining popularity.

Sunday provided calm weather, flat seas and a gentle 10 knot southerly later ensuring everyone made it back to RCYC before sunset. We left the marina at 0615 and motored at 5.6knots till Dassen island from where we put up the No.1 Genoa and managed a steady 6+ knots all the way to Robben Island with each crew member doing a one hour stint on the helm. A Southern Right whale surfaced about 80 meters off our starboard beam at one stage. Add to that mix a few penguins and lots of seals summed up the marine life. And one solitary jellyfish. The last six miles had us motor sailing again. We docked exactly 12 hours after leaving Mykonos in formidable heat in Cape Town of 38C.

Some notes on our crew performance.
Phillip joined our team as a rank novice two seasons ago and has developed a solid understanding of how the whole sailing game works. His presence on the boat ensures that detail gets taken care of. He has also totally mastered his workstation in the pit. Great job.

Nic (17) has crewed for me since the age of 8 (on and off). I really pushed him into the deep end for this regatta. Both our regular bowmen were unable to sail, so Nic was given the job. He tackled the responsibilities with eagerness and a sense of urgency and made no mistakes. It gives me tremendous pleasure to see these youngsters doing so well and I hope that my mentorship has played a role in his success.

Andrew James (17) Joined our team as a once off for this regatta. He slotted in easily and quickly proved himself as a capable sailor with those obvious qualities one acquires sailing dinghies. Andrew was first class on this trip and an immediate asset.

Simon Penso (22) is another big lad at 92kgs. whose weight on the rail was much needed. Also a quick learner and other than being on the wrong side of the boat in our catastrophic gybe, proved to be helpful, quiet and observant and a pleasure to have on board.

Mike Rothenburg (64) Mike stepped into the breach when Waldo couldn’t make it. An experienced sailor and still in good shape for his age. Perhaps a little overwhelmed at the pace and speed of the J27, but he manfully got stuck into the main trim and never complained about the barrage of instructions from the skipper; the raised voices; the urgency. Mike had the ride of his life in a sailboat. One he will remember for a very long time. He climbed into the team spirit boots and all. Well done, Mike.

Considering we had half our crew missing, and one person out of position, I think this crew deserves the highest praise in terms of what we were able to achieve. We overcame everything that stood in our path.

Mike summed things up rather wrily at the beginning of the Race 1: “A measure of how successful a regatta is for a crew on any given boat, is whether they are still talking to each other at the end of it”

A special word of thanks to Phillips fiance, Jeanine, who did two trips up by car lugging all our excess baggage back and forth and Bruce and Melodie Scott
who prepared and sponsored our meals and drinks for our return leg. Bruce was scheduled to sail back to Cape Town with us, but a serious bout of flu put paid to those plans. Next time.

We will rest the boat and crew for 10 days and be back in action again on Wednesday 15th March for the final Twilight Race No. 8

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1st March, 2006
NSRI Twilight Race No.7
Cancelled due to excessive wind and wave heights

Yet another blown-out race! With a forecast of a 35 knot North wester and 80% rain, coupled with a storm warning by the met office in terms of big wave heights, Race Officer Peter Hill (J27 - Hillbilly) wisely decided to can racing for the small group of optimistic die-hards who actually pitched to race and instead swelled the bar coffers considerably.

At least the boat will be dry and ready for the Mykonos Offshore Race on Friday.

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22nd February, 2006
NSRI Twilight Race No. 6

Race in a nutshell:
Position (IRC): 2nd
Position (PHRF): 2nd
Position Line : 2nd
Total Entries: 7 (Spin) + 17 (Class 1) + 27 (Class 2) = 51

Ave Speed: 7.1 kts
Max Speed: 12.1 kts
Distance: 13.4 nm.
Time: 01:23.30


Weather Forecast: Fine. Wind South-East 20 knots Temp. 18/30C, Baro: 1015hPa, Deep Sea swell: 2.5m SW

Weather Actual: Wind was 25 to 35 knots!! The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Course: SE/A4: 3 x windward/leeward loops
Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P) – No. 8 (P) – Paarden island (P) – No.8 (P) – – Paarden Island (P ) – No. 8 (P) – No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.3 Genoa

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Allan Taylor (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Simon Penso (Mast), Nic Baigrie (Bow), (Total: 490kg)

I will call this the ‘Tale of the Sunfish………’

We have never hit anything hard since sailing this J27, but I should confess openly, that I have often thought about it. More so, when catapulting off those steep waves at 15 knots and during that hectic night sail around Robben Island. I have a keen sense of imagination. I have imagined the sickly crunch of hitting a submerged container, a floating tree trunk and the big fear – a whale……I have thought of the consequences of the keel ripping off and none of us wearing life jackets and no life raft on the boat either…of falling into an ice cold Atlantic where your survival time is probably just short of 20 minutes….. but we go sailing and put these thoughts in the back of our minds.

We peeled around the weather mark at pace, executing a seamanlike gybe, as the boat rapidly accelerated up to 10 knots and then we smacked into something big and soft and came to a very abrupt halt. Rodney, our main trimmer, possesses extraordinary presence of mind during emergencies. He is always the first to react and sort the problem out. This time he immediately called for the boat to turned into the wind, as he sheeted the main up to heel the boat. He then hung over the side – stuck his head under the waves to check what had happened and mainly to make sure the keel was still there. Up he came and pronounced : “SUNFISH !!” (except it was a lot louder than that!). We wiggled the boat back and forth (in a 35 knot blow) and finally the big fish swam lazily away, not too badly shaken up after being smashed into by a boat and crew weighing around 2.3 tons. As Rodney said: “The Sunfish looked fairly pissed off!”

Sunfish have been recorded at up to two tons!! I doubt this one weighed that much, but it sure was a show stopper, or rather a boat stopper. Go to this link to see what this strange fish is all about:

http://www.earthwindow.com/mola.html

Before the start at the moorings it was hot with hardly any breeze, but that tell-tale cap of cloud on Devils Peak gave a hint that we would need our oilies on the bay. It has also been a month of crew problems and cancelled races.

Chris suddenly left to visit his girlfriend in London, leaving me with a scramble to find a good bowman, which it would seem, after many phone calls, was a singularly unsuccessful endeavour, so Nic has been upgraded and will take over bow till Chris’s return on an, as yet, unknown date. Waldo also couldn’t make it this week, so I got hold of Allan Taylor (the newest and happiest J27 owner in the world. He has just paid for his J27 and PURE MAGIC should be in Cape Town within a few weeks. Fabulous news!) to take over genoa/spinnaker trimmer duties. A friend and ex crew member in my dinghy sailing days, Andrea Giovanini, brought along a young student, Simon Penso – a beefy, bright and eager guy who I put in as mast man. Essentially that represented three untested crew in new positions. Good communication was going to be needed to avoid foul-ups.

In typical Cape Doctor conditions, we had a calm in the yacht basin, a light north wester in the main harbour, and a 25 to 30 knot south easter on the bay. I took an early decision and decided to be conservative and sail without a kite on the downwind legs, unless the breeze dropped of course. We had a great pin end start going flat out and hit the line on the hooter. With 6,2 knots on the log and excellent pointing we made rapid progress to the weather mark, rounding on the heels of a Fast 42 (which later retired) and our main rival the L34 -“Sensation”

The FAST 42 gybed and broached – almost into our path. Sensation got clear and put their spinnaker up to make a clean getaway. That was when we started collecting large marine animals on our keel. After the Sunfish debacle, we regained our composure and got the No.3 poled out. The boat felt stable and controllable and we were sailing consistently over 9 knots with this combo. Amazingly, we were still in 2nd place.

We managed to get the boatspeed cooking up to 6.3 knots on the next beat by sailing free and fat and could maintain the gap with Sensation. The next gybe had the breeze up to 35 knots solid and the direction had backed by 10 degrees, making for an uncomfortable gybe. There was that pregnant two seconds – heeled over to windward – boom in the sky – and still no gybe. The boat slows, the helm goes heavy, we force the gybe and the boom comes across so violently, we subconciosusly do a head count. "Yes, OK – six heads – let’s carry on sailing." No Sunfish this time as we struggle to clip the pole onto the mast and get the No.3 over to windward. We are planing now, light vibration from keel and rudder and we are flying down the wave faces in that perfect dance between ocean and boat. We are happy and closing quickly on the down wind mark and several Class 1 and 2 boats coming up to the mark from their course. We have water and start calling early with the usual reluctance by big boat skippers to give way to a J27. But we have some BIG voices amongst our crew and one or two of those bull-bellows from Rodney gets some reaction. We get our water – round tightly and nail many of the big boats back upwind to the weather mark. We still have 6,2 knots on the log upwind. The wind is 30 gusting 35 knots. It is wet and lumpy. Simon is sailing in shorts and T shirt ( the last time he will ever do that!)

The last rounding of the weather mark and the wind has backed more into the south making for yet another forced gybe. As the boom crashes over, we almost go into a broach, except that Dr Phil knows his stuff on the vang and we are soon back on the plane. It’s no longer necessary booming the No.3 out – we are skimming downwind and hit our max speed of the day: 12.1 knots.

Ahead of us, by 150 meters, we have the Lightwave 395 (40ft) – “Touch n Go” and on our stern, a Simonis 35 – “Scatterling”
Touch n Go is ahead of us, with two reefs in their main and we are gaining inexorably on the big boat (and enjoying it tremendously). We are smoking down the waves, burying the bow, huge volumes of water cascading over the decks and coachroof, and by halfway down the leg, we pull up level with them and start with the calls for “Water at the mark” which is still some way off, but with the big boat skippers, we need to be aggressive and assertive in calling for our rights. Behind us, “Scatterling” is gaining but with each gust, we plane away and despite Touch n Go’s best efforts to break the overlap, we sneak in and get our inside overlap. Upwind, we outpointed them and had better boatspeed to finish well ahead of both of them boat for boat over the line. Maybe it was not so clever to beat Touch n Go like that, as it belongs to the club handicapper!

Sensation had a great race, flying their spinnaker on all three downwind legs to beat us comfortably on PHRF and IRC. Only three of the seven entries finished this race. This was really exciting racing in heavy weather and a novel experience for our guest crew and surely some J27 converts amongst them. Allan was positively beaming and astounded that a 27 foot boat could attain those speeds up and down-wind.

One more twilight Race next week and then we are off to Mykonos and our annual long distance jaunt down the West Coast.

Peter Hill is making a good recovery with his shoulder injury and has indicated he will enter “Hillbilly” (J27) in the Mykonos Race. Soon we will be three. This can only improve our combined standards.

Spinnaker Course A4 Start: 17h50
Sail #
Class Yacht & Skipper Club TCF
IRC TCC Finished Elapsed Corrected
Corr IRC Place

005
L34 Sensation
AR Munnik 1.015
0.97 19 5 27 1 15 27 1 16 35
1 13 11 1
1
SA204
J27 Smack Water Jack
T Roberts 1.005
0.938 19 13 5 1 23 5 1 23 30
1 17 56 2
2
SA 3141
First 7.5 Always Well
Burger/Thomas 1.02
1.024 19 32 6 1 42 6 1 44 8
1 44 33 3
3
SA 4242
Fast 42 Tenacity
E Stern 1.17
1.111 RTD
SA 42
L 34 Sea Minor
D Price 1.015
0.972 RTD
24
L 34 Six Pack
P Holloway 1.015 RTD
SA 702
Charger 33 FTI Flyer
K Mattison 0.995 DNS
SA 2127
Jaz 30 Monkies in the Mist
B Diebold 1.14 DNS

Only spinnaker class results shown

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15th February, 2006
NSRI Twilght Race No. 5
Cancelled due to excessive wind

This is terrible! I have lost count. Is this the 6th or 7th blown our race this season? The Cape Doctor has been visiting too often and for too long. We are all tiring of this strong breeze now.

February normally sees the breeze dying and hot weather decending on the Mother City, so I don't know why it's been blowing so much. Whilst we are having hot, windy weather, it's been pouring all over the rest of the country, so I guess it's not all bad. Good for agriculture, at least.

So what can the club do? Run a cancelled race the next day? Not many crew can get two afternoons off a week. So how about a Saturday? In many instances, that is family time, or consumed by other sports/interests.

I guess, a cancelled race is just a cancelled race and it should be left as such.

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8th February, 2006
NSRI Twilight Race No. 4
Cancelled due to excessive wind

One of the plusses of being Duty Officer, is one gets to be the first person to know what is happening with the decisions on shore, and so it was that I got to drive out onto the elevated road near the container terminal at Paarden Island at 3 in the afternoon on Wednesday to get a first hand view of the sea state and wind strength.

Well, it was blowing forty f*cking hooligans!! The bay was white with wind driven spume. Decision made there and then! At least my crew all got their SMS message in time to avoid the traffic through to Royal Cape. Back at the club the breeze seemed docile and pleasant and the sailing Manager gave me a quizzical look when I said the race should be cancelled, but by 5pm. it was blowing hard at the moorings as well and by 6pm. we could hardly stand (from the wind gusts, not the beer) outside the pub, so it was the right decision after all.

An exceptionally windy year? Not really. A bit worse than 2005, but I think the problem this year is that Wednesday's seem to be falling into sequence with the heavy air days, whereas last year we were more lucky.

But it does bring me back to a point I made six months ago on this website: We should have our main sailing season in winter. I won't delve into the detail again, but the powers that be should just do it and see what happens. I reckon it would be a winning formula.

We are short of two hands for the Mykonos race (or for those of you that are non-sailors, four hands = 2 crew).
the longer distance, weekend races require a lot more effort co-ordinating the crew, but at the time of writing, we are two (key) crew down. If you are an experienced dinghy or keelboat sailor, and want to experience the thrill of a J27 under full power offshore in big swell, then give me a call on 083-658-8888
The ride is free.

And this week, I was really pleased to receive an email from a potential J27 owner and follower of this website. His name is Allan Taylor and he is in an advanced stage of negotiations with the purchase of "Pure Magic"

This boat was the original J27 built in South Africa by Grant Davidge-Pitts and still managed to win the biggest sailing regatta in the country in 2004 - The Round the Island Race on the Vaaldam with entries in excess of 600! "Pure Magic" has an enviable reputation as a fast light weather boat. It might need a little tweaking to adjust to the Cape Doctor, but I am delighted that we have another J27 at RCYC. Allan spent an hour onboard Smackwater Jack on Wednesday asking lots of questions and he intimated that he expected the boat to be ready to sail by October/November and that it was in the plan to enter Table Bay Week 2006.

By the end of the coming winter, Peter Hill should have recovered from his shoulder injury and what a sight it will be to have three J27's gracing Table Bay in the very near future.

I have assured Allan of our support and asistance up to such time that he beats us. After that, he will get nailed like everyone else!

Till next week. Be cool.

---

1st February, 2006
NSRI Twilight Race No. 2
(At last!!)

Race in a nutshell:
Position (IRC): 2nd
Position (PHRF): 2nd
Position Line : 3rd
Total Entries: 7 (Spin) + 12 (Class 1) + 21 (Class 2) = 40

Ave Speed: 6.0 kts
Max Speed: 11.4 kts
Distance: 9.21 nm.
Time: 00:56.46


Weather Forecast: Fine. Wind South-East 20/25 knots Temp. 23/34C, Baro: 1011hPa, Deep Sea swell: 2.0m SSW

Weather Actual: Temp was 38C !!! The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Course: SE/A1 Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P) – No. 8 (P) – Paarden island (P) – No.8 (P) – No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.2 Genoa, .75oz North Mamba Spinnaker

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Waldo Zevenster (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Nic Baigrie (Mast), Chris Miller (Bow). (Total: 480kg)

After two weeks of blown out sailing, we finally managed to get out on the water again. It was a blindingly hot day with 38 degrees C measured in the city bowl at 4 in the afternoon. Prepping the boat, I made sure we had extra water and soft drinks on board. Rodney arrived with our brand new Tack-Tick Compass under his arm and it was great having this instrument on board once again.

With Waldo arriving a little late, we arrived at the start area with only about 8 minutes to go before the start. The South Easter was unusual, to say the least, and we were undecided whether to go for the No.3 or No.2 Genoa. With only four minutes to go, we removed the blade and got the No.2 up … and only just in time. On the start line, we had one or two cruisers getting in our way, despite my usual radio call asking them to keep clear. The Simonis 35, “Pallucci” specifically parked directly upwind of our route and cost us a few seconds.

We had a good start, hitting the line at max speed, fully powered up in the most leeward position of the fleet and two boat lengths to leeward of Sensation. We were pointing higher than them, as they were bearing down on us with the obvious intention of running over us, so we cracked off a touch trying to match their speed, but it was in vain, as they steadily pulled away from us in the fresh breeze. We were doing allright and rounded the weather mark in 3rd place.
The way the south easter lifts on starboard tack as one closes on the shore is always hard to trust, but if the breeze is above 18 knots, the lift will be there. It invariably pays to start at the pin end, believe in the boat's pointing ability, and the lift factor of the Cape Doctor.

The Fast 42 “Tenacity” and Sensation rounded ahead. Sensation and ourselves both went for gybe hoists, which paid dividends. Despite being 3rd around, we were the first boat to have a kite up and drawing. Sensation were having some problems with their hoist, allowing us to close the gap a little. Tenacity only got their kite up a quarter of the way down the leg, allowing us to get within 50 meters of them. The breeze was not quite enough to get us past 8 knots, but the trim of the boat felt very good with a light helm.

Behind us the First 7.5 was getting itself into all sorts of trouble with their assymetrical, creating a safe gap between us and the rest of the fleet. We did a seamanlike strike and rounding and were going fast upwind in a building breeze and a choppy sea – pointing a little higher than Sensation. They tacked off onto starboard quite early (I thought) and we went on another 20 lengths before rolling over onto starboard. We ended up overstanding by that margin and we dropped a bit further behind Sensation in the process. Chris, our bowman, correctly called the layline. This small error would easily have cost us the 35 seconds we needed for an IRC 1st place.

The breeze was up to the upper limits the No.2 could handle (23/25 knots) and we were dumping lots of power out of the main.

Our second gybe hoist was even better than the first and we had a great sail down to No.8 even getting momentarily onto the plane on a few occasions, reaching a maximum speed of 11.4 knots, but still the gap remained the same between ourselves and Sensation. The First 7.5 was playing catch-up and tried a gybe hoist like ourselves, but managed another broach and the gap increased all over again. That boat is really fast downwind – a whole lot faster than us – but they have to sail the typically shallow angles of a sprit boat which invariably costs them time and many more gybes than us, and with each gybe, the potential for problems. We rounded No.8 ahead of them despite their fast planing downwind.

I learned a new trick last night. We sailed the second downwind leg heeling about 10 degrees to WINDWARD as opposed to sailing the boat flat. As the gusts were hitting us, the boat would roll up to just beyond vertical (about 5 degrees to leeward) and provide a lot of extra accelleration, compared to our normal style of easing the vang to avoid the boom hitting the wave tops. I'm sure this can only be effectively applied in a specific wind range (18 to 25 knots). Below that it would probably be slow and above that one would experience too much lee helm and the danger of a windward death roll.

For the final beat to the finish line, we breeze was a solid 25 knots and we were getting seriously overcanvassed with the No.2. It’s a short leg, so we just hung in and sailed with the mast fully back, max outhaul, traveller right down, kicker eased - until we crossed the line.

Even on corrected time, we were 1 min 54 secs behind Sensation, but only 35 seconds behind on IRC. The Fast 42, despite it’s line honours win, ended up 5th on PHRF.

We won't get overly excited over our 2nd place, as the fleet was not very competitive (other than Mark Sadler on Sensation) and the entries were low as well. However, it was a lovely sail in short sleeves in fabulously warm weather. Rodney noticed that our second [from the top] full batten was looking a little peculiar near the luff of the sail, so we removed the batten back at the dock and were not entirely surprised to see that it had broken clean through about six inches from the leech end. The longer section had moved backwards and inside the short broken piece leaving an equivalent gap at the luff. It is possible that we have been sailing like this since before Table Bay Week. It is hard to imagine how and when this happened, but probably during a heavy wind gybe.

Our new team configuration is working out very nicely and Waldo’s presence on the boat is an asset in every way. He has brought a new calmness to the boat and that combined with agility, strength and his perception and understanding of headsail and spinnaker trimming is very good. We hardly ever have a spinnaker collapse these days.

Chris is at the halfway point of his 32 day non-drinking stint, proving to himself that he is not, after all an “alkie”

Nic, on the other hand, is saving all his pocket money, to become one as quickly as possible – the dream of 16 year old boys.

Phillip (Dr. Phil) – who is about to get married, has gone on a strict diet in a bid to sport a more Adonis like physique for his bride to be, and politely refused all the sweet drinks being passed around.

Rodney is walking a gentle, middle of the road approach to parties, and limiting his intake to a single beer after sailing.

And the skipper? Well I just plod on having learned long ago that the excesses of life are invariably punished in some way or the other. My maxim is a beer a day keeps the doctor away.

Until next time….

Spinnaker Course A1 Start: 17h50 SE 20 Knots, calm
Sail #
Class Yacht & Skipper Club TCF
IRC TCC Finished Elapsed Corrected
Corr IRC Place

005
L34 Sensation
AR Munnik 1.015
0.97 18 44 18 0 54 18 0 55 7
0 52 40 1
1
SA204
J27 Smack Water Jack
T Roberts 1.005
0.938 18 46 46 0 56 46 0 57 3
0 53 15 2
2
SA 3141
First 7.5 Always Well
Burger/Thomas 1.02
1.024 18 47 45 0 57 45 0 58 55
0 59 8 3
4
13
RCOD Ariel
S Saville 0.925 18 54 28 1 4 28 0 59 38 4
SA 4242
Fast 42 Tenacity
E Stern 1.17
1.111 18 41 6 0 51 6 0 59 47
0 56 46 5
3
SA 702
Charger 33 FTI Flyer
K Mattison 0.995 18 55 15 1 5 15 1 4 55 6
SA 42
L 34 Sea Minor
D Price 1.015
0.972 retired

---

25th January, 2006
NSRI Twilight Race No. 2
Cancelled due to excessive wind speed

So there I was on holiday wondering who had won this race destined to be our discard, when I received an SMS from Dr. Phil informing me that this week's race was once again blown out.

Things are working out well for us so far in 2006!

---

18th January, 2006
NSRI Twilight Race No. 2
Cancelled due to excessive wind speed

The weather forecast was for a moderate south westerly. Great breeze for a J27. By Tuesday, the forecast had been modified to an 18 knot southerly. Ah, but as so often happens in the corner of Table Bay where we are domiciled, the Cape Doctor comes a knockin - It sounded more like he was trying to break the door down. A solid 35 knots...enough to make Smackwater Jack roll violently on her mooring ropes. The committee sensibly cancelled racing for the day. Unfortunately it means this race gets moved to next week and we will not be racing - So there goes our discard! Eish!

We bought some beers and had a Mykonos strategy meeting instead. Some other issues were discussed as well with Chris, Phillip and Rodney running on non-alcoholic beverages for an indefinite period. Rodney confirmed that drinking at the RCYC pub and that famous camera trap on Table Bay Boulevard turned his bar bill into a very expensive exercise with no less than three fines arriving in the space of a week. Very sobering are those pink envelopes with the summons inside....

Half an hour later, Rodney had capitulated and converted onto the drinker's side. Easy customer!

A bit of feedback on the Tacktick compass. After a few emails back and forth between the UK based parent company and myself, the powers that be have decided to replace the unit for free. I have to admit, that is a very generous gesture on their part (this would include the Cape Town based agents, Central Boating) as I was willing to contribute to the cost of a replacement unit. It goes to show that a company that believes in what they produce and market, will stand by their product. My Tacktick was two months out of warranty. Thanks Rodney for your efforts in arranging this. By the next race we will be back to digitally finding the lifts and headers.

---

14th January, 2006
Spilhaus Round Robben Island Race

Race in a nutshell:
Position (IRC): 2nd
Position (PHRF): 5th
Position Class 2 (PHRF): 2nd
Position Line : 9th
Total Entries: 28

Ave Speed: 6.3 kts
Max Speed: 9.6 kts
Distance: 25.03 nm.
Time: 03:17.57


Weather Forecast: Cloudy with 60% rain by evening. Wind North West 18 – 20 knots Temp. 18/25C, Baro: 1005hPa, Deep Sea swell: 1.5mm SSW

Weather Actual: Fine. Sunny. No Clouds. No Rain. The rest of the forecast was accurate.

Course: Start No:10 (S) – Robben Island (P) – No.10 (P)

Sails: Full Main, No.2 Genoa, .75oz North Mamba Spinnaker

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Waldo Zevenster (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Nic Baigrie (Mast), Craig Tarr (Mast), Chris Miller (Bow). (Total: 560kg)

In my 56 years on planet earth, with a Norwegian mother who gave me such an unusual name, I thought it timeous to mention that I probably have the most misspelled/mispronounced name EVER!

Believe me, I have seen it all. This week, yet another version has appeared (on the results sheet of this race). TRYGVRE
Hell it's difficult enough without the extra R.

I find it interesting that a six letter word can have so many computations.....

Trygve, Trigve, Trygver, Trigver, Trygeve, Tregvor, Trevor, Trygvor, Trygwe, yep...it goes on and on.... I'm sure you get the picture. If your spelling is a little rusty, just stick with "Trig"

We missed doing this race in 2004 as I was away on holiday. In 2003 we came 14th. This year we improved in leaps and bounds....

Invariably it turns out to be a big boat race, as there are often big seas running on the west side of the island, which does not auger well for small yachts.

This year was no exception with a cold front marching in from the north west. Unusual for mid-summer, to say the least – The customary South Easter (notice how I spell that with caps – with reverence to the great and humbling Doctor!) which normally makes this a downwind dash/upwind slog, but it was blessedly not around and we were faced with near perfect sailing conditions of an 18 knot north westerly, but a very lumpy ocean and a 2.0 swell to add to the backwash.

I took a gamble on the wind being fresh, and staying fresh, and decided to sail 7-up, bringing our all up crew weight in at 560kg. We opted for the No.2 Genoa, whilst almost all the other boats were putting No.3’s up and some even had reefs in. One boat even had a double reef and a tiny headsail.

After checking the line for bias, we opted for a pin end start and late if necessary, but we simply had to be at the pin. It was obvious everyone who knew anything about racing would be at the pin end. And so it was.

We had “Al” (Farr 38) to leeward and a fairly clear run in to the pin buoy, with the exception of “Saorsi” (Atlantis 36) whose skipper – a sailing instructor nonetheless!- who seemed incapable of responding to our calls of ‘NO BARGING’ and ‘WEATHER BOAT!’ Their headsail was flying unsheeted and we had to sail a wide arc around them to avoid touching their sheet and sail. Despite the irritating hold up, we still had a good start and were only about 2 seconds late. “Al” crossed ahead of us on port, but not another single boat could do that. We stuck to our starboard tack until the entire fleet had gone under and behind us on port. We tacked finally to avoid any wind shadow from the harbour wall and maintained our ‘furthest west’ position. We were looking good compared to the rest of the fleet.

The first boat to tack over to our side was “Al”. Then came the Swede 55 (skippered by the sponsor Teddy Kuttel). We went back onto starboard tack to consolidate our ‘furthest west’ strategy. I had spent some time studying the chart and wind angles the day before and had a definite plan for this race. One by one the bigger boats headed our way to get onto the port layline to the island. First the Fast 42 (Tenacity), then Avanti (Vickers 41). We were dueling with the big boys. Avanti kept on tacking on top of us and we kept on breaking cover. We were pointing considerably higher than the big boat and with our heavier crew weight on the rail and big sail plan were able to sustain a boat speed of between 5.8 and 6.0 knots, despite the choppy sea. We had left all the other smaller boats far behind and were having fun harassing the big boats with our superior maneuverability.

Within 2 hours we were in the lee of the island and holding our own against a Lavranos 2 tonner “Nutcracker” and the Simonis 35 (Palucci). No matter how hard these two boats tried, they could not get past us. We used every trick in the book to stay ahead, which included boxing the one boat in-between the shore and ourselves on starboard and putting them in our dirties to slow them down – all of it done with a good deal of success. We were also able to sail faster in the flat water (6.3 knots) and accelerate quickly out of each tack, gaining time/distance on the bigger boats. A further advantage is that we were able to shave the shore compared to the bigger boats having to sail a bit further out and a longer distance. The net result is that we rounded the island’s north shore a hundred meters ahead of the two big boats and in 7th place overall. We were far-and-a-way the smallest boat in the top 10.

We got our spinnaker up as soon as we could clear the western reef, but the breeze had dropped down to about 12 to 15 knots and any question of planing was forgotten about. We sailed for max VMG and kept the angle at 150 degrees. The bigger boats were sailing much deeper than us, but slower. They were slowly gaining on us. We worked the boat and surfed every wave we could find. I think we did about four or five gybes in a breeze that seemed to be progressively fading. About half a mile from the finish the two big boats finally overtook us, but they wouldn’t stand a chance on corrected time.

We crossed the line a very satisfying 9th overall, which corrected to 2nd IRC and 5th PHRF.

Unfortunately a Muira ( a heavy 30 foot cruising boat) sneaked in with a very low rating to pip us by 29 seconds, despite being 15 minutes astern of us. However, the pill to swallow was the margin by which “Al” had beaten us. A whopping 23 minutes, which only goes to show what can be achieved when outstanding sailors like Mark Sadler (helmsman on Shosholoza) and Rick Nankin (director of North Sails) are on board. In South Africa, we don’t have the US rule of owner/driver, and perhaps it would be a good thing if boats that have professional helmsmen on board carry a time penalty of 5%.

See below for copies of emails to RCYC regarding some of these issues.

This was a most enjoyable race and I wonder why the club does not put more of them on the calendar. They are clearly very popular.

Oh yes, we had very few problems on board with our crowded crew situation – just lots of laughter and many “dxwhooooooop” calls, the latter which causes crews to gape at us with that look which reads: “You guys are not lekker!”. Anyone who has ever sailed with us will know that as the dreaded call of the No.8 buoy coupled with a bit of sea-sickness and a hangover is a sure signal your time has come to visit the lee rail or the gray bucket. It has become a big joke and we have adopted it as our battle cry.

Yes. Sometimes we're weird!

I thought it only fair to mention that the NAVMAN 5600 Chartplotter worked for the entire duration of the race without freezing up once. I am cautiously optimistic that the problem might have been solved.

The news on the Tack-Tick Race Master Electronic Compass is less palatable. It would appear that earlier models did have some battery problems, which have subsequently been rectified. I bought one of those. It is looking increasingly like I will have to replace it at my own expense. I will write to the manufacturers directly and see what can be accomplished. Watch this space.

PHRF Results:

Thanks to CREW: Ron, Emilio and OOD: Teddy Kuttel

SA 630 Farr38 Al J van Rooyen 2 57 4 1 (IRC 1st)

SA978 Atlantis 49 Aurora M Hawtrey 3 9 13 2

USA43434 Swede 55 Spilhaus III T Kuttel 3 11 20 3

SA 33 Miura Julie III R Green 3 18 17 4

204 J 27 Smack Water Jack Trygvre Roberts 3 18 56 5 (IRC 2nd)

37 L34 Spectrum A James 3 21 20 6

003 L26 Welsh Witch D Garrett 3 21 49 7

SA18 L34 Aquavit P Flockton 3 21 51 8

SA 2418 H34 Celine III V Vierhaus 3 11 30 9

3 SA 2103 Vickers 41 Avanti Harry Brehm 3 21 55 10 (IRC 3rd)

SA2018 Stadt 34 steel hull Cabaray
R Matthews 3 25 9 11 (IRC 4th)

4 Nam 10 Farr 40 Alladin H Geiger 3 27 8 12

SA893 Muira fold. Chen R Vollmer 3 30 5 13

700 Lav 2 ton NutCracker Dieter Meikle 3 30 35 14

SA 1245 Simonis 35 mod Pallucci S Kaye 3 32 0 15

SA702 Charger 33 FTI Flyer K Mattison 3 34 46 16

SA 2405 Fast 42 Shazam Fred Phillips 3 36 43 17 (IRC 5th)

RSA 3141 Beneteau 7.5 Always Well
Lance Burger 3 36 48 18 (IRC 6th)

13 RCOD Ariel S Saville 3 38 49 19

078 L 26 JML 3 44 12 20

SA 1927 Sadler 32 Deelite I Mc Lean 3 50 21

SA 050 L26 Cape Recife S Bentley 3 58 55 22

SA 2278 Jenneau 36 Sirocco W Heizmann 4 2 14 23

SA 2360 Atlantis 36 Saoirse T Blackwell 4 5 52 24

SA2996 RCOD Reaction H Boecker 4 23 37 25

SA 704 H34* Freestyle G Franklin DNF 26

L34 Amberluoi M Schultz DNF 27

SA339 Impact Mod Halali E Lehmann DNF 28


Please note that the IRC results do not count towards the series and are shown for your interest only.

---

Article below written for publication in the February issue of Sailing Magazine

IRC vs. PHRF - Why we must change……

At the so called IRC National Championships (Table Bay Week) held during December 2005 in Cape Town the fleet consisted of 10 boats in Class 1 and 6 boats in Class 2. There were 20 entries in the Cruiser Division (basically boats without IRC Certificates). This is a pathetic state of affairs. One can accept that the Class 1 entries might have been higher if it wasn’t for the South Atlantic Race, but I doubt if that would have been an issue in Class 2 (Basically boats under 34 ft LOA)

Only two of the big fleet of L34’s at RCYC have IRC certificates. The rest had to sail in the Cruiser fleet. What a sad sight. The same applies to the substantial L26 fleet in Cape Town.

Here are the reasons why we have the current status quo:
1. Lack of effective campaigning by the IRC body in SA
2. A perpetuation of PHRF or club handicap by yacht clubs
3. PHRF is free and no hassles involved. IRC involves a fee.
4. Apathy amongst boat owners


It has been shown world wide that IRC is a much fairer handicapping system and is being adopted and recognized internationally, including the whole of Europe, UK, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. So, with that given, how can we get local boat owners to get their boats IRC certificates?

I had my boat certified three years ago. It involved weighing the boat with all the loose gear removed and a few basic measurements being taken. The whole process took less than two hours and the cost was well under R 900 including the crane fee. The annual revalidation process involves signing a form that no changes have been made to the boat and that’s it.

Yachtsmen are notoriously slow in effecting and accepting change. The recent skipper’s ticket debacle is a good example. The moaning went on for months. Now they are all quiet and our lives are back to normal and most have got their skippers tickets. Ask a yachtie to part with a few hundred Rands and even the wealthiest will howl in protest, yet the same owner will happily part with R15,000 for a new headsail. So why the poverty plea when it comes to getting an IRC certificate? I think it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with apathy and inconvenience. As long as yacht clubs perpetuate the PHRF system, IRC can never work here.

The remedy:
1. All yacht clubs in SA and SAS to jointly agree on a deadline when PHRF/club handicaps become obsolete. After the deadline, boats without IRC certificates do not have results shown.


2. Alternatively levy an annual charge for each vessel’s PHRF rating to be reviewed by the club handicapper equal to roughly double the cost of the IRC fee.


3. Make the initial issue of an IRC Certificate free. Raise sponsors from within the boating industry to create a fund (to be administered by SAS – Say roughly 300 boats nationally at R1000 each = R 300,000) with a moratorium period of say one year, where any boat converting to IRC gets the initial IRC certificate free. Thereafter the annual revalidation involves a small fee. (about the same as a car license)

There will be the usual people complaining about these suggestions and it will be the same ones who didn’t want to get skippers tickets. I expect this, but if we want to remain internationally competitive in our sport, the conversion to IRC is the right way to go. Like the TV Licence ad: “It’s the right thing to do”

Our clubs need to give this problem urgent priority on their agendas. SAS and the IRC Association of SA need to actively put heads together and get this project rolling on a national level.

Next year at Table Bay Week, if these ideas are pursued, we might just improve on the entry levels from a paltry 16 boats right up to 60. Without a plan or goals, nothing will happen and our club sailing will sink to even lower levels.

---

11th January, 2006
Twilight Racing – NSRI 1

Race in a nutshell:

Position Handicap (IRC): 1st
Position Handicap (PHRF): 3rd
Position Line : 4th


Weather Forecast: Fine. Wind South West 15 knots, Temp. 18/26C, Baro: 1012hPa, Deep Sea swell: 1.0mm SW

Weather Reality: Wind South East 20 – 25 knots. The rest was accurate

Course: SE-A1 : Start No:10 (P) – Paarden Island (P) – No.8 (P) – Paarden Island (P) – No.8 (P) – No.10 (P)
-
Sails: Full Main, No.3 Genoa, .6oz Red Quantum Spinnaker

Crew: Trygve Roberts (Helm), Rodney Tanner (Main), Waldo Zevenster (Genoa), Phillip Rentschler (Halyards), Nic Baigrie (Mast) Chris Miller (Bow). (Total: 490kg)


Total Entries: 8 (spin) + 8 (class 1) + 23 (class 2) = 39

Ave Speed: 6.8 kts
Max Speed: 11.2 kts
Distance: 7.63 nm.
Time: 00:56.12

After our hiding during Table Bay Week and the Christmas holidays under the belt, all of us had some time to think long and hard, not least of which, was your scribe and skipper. Plenty of head scratching and soul searching took place over the past three weeks.

Chris, Phillip and Rodney with a few girlfriends joined me to watch the Volvo In Port Race on December 26th (in a 45 knot Cape Doctor) [See story lower down on this page] and again on January 2nd for the start of the second leg to Melbourne, Australia; the latter of which was the diametric opposite in terms of weather. Those poor Volvo skippers bobbed around in the wake of a thousand spectator boats and took more than two hours to cover two nautical miles. The slow progress did however make for fabulous photo opportunities.

Of interest that every boat had a crewman at the masthead going up the first beat in the light and shifty winds. His (their) job was to look for wind patches and to physically kick the top batten through to leeward after each tack.

Last weekend I sorted out the outboard bracket which has been a source of perpetual irritation over the past year and whilst it involved stripping the mechanism down to the last washer, it feels brand new now and works like a charm. Phillip joined me last Sunday and we repaired all the accumulated gelcoat chips and touched up some corrosion spots on the mast, which involved Phillip swinging around in the Bosuns chair three meters off the deck with a pot of paint in one hand and the brush in the other. Luckily the wild swinging in the strong south easter didn’t worry him too much. However, the job of winching him up the mast left me out of breath and I promptly put another two deep “rope burns” through the gelcoat on the coachroof. More maintenance!

We have also experienced some instrument problems. I try to buy the very best products available and invested a considerable sum in acquiring a NAVMAN 5600 Chartplotter as well as a TackTick electronic/tactical compass. Both have become important in our race management and information systems. Both have also started to become unreliable. Let’s start with the Chartplotter. This unit set me back R 11,500 and over the past few months has developed a habit of “freezing” – like a computer. We then have to switch off the mains power and it has to reboot and find the satellites from scratch. Obviously this is unacceptable. The unit was removed and sent in to the agents (PERTEC) in Cape Town who bench tested it for two days and found nothing wrong with it. I replaced the unit and the very first race had it freezing up again. Pertec then suggested that the CMap (chip) was faulty, so Rodney arranged for a new one, but still this irritating and intermittent problem persisted. I got Pertec to examine my installation (no fault found) and they removed the unit and took it back to the lab for a second time. It is still under warranty.

This time the unit did freeze up in the lab, so they reflashed the unit with the latest software. The good news is it ran perfectly for the duration of last night's race. The bad news is that the reflashing process has erased all the waypoints and routes! Aaaargh!

The Tack-Tick is now almost ubiquitous on all racing boats world wide. It is a wonderful and simple design with its own battery system which is solar charged. No screws, No bolts. It simply clicks in and out of its bracket as we need it. We have had it for over two years now and during Table Bay Week (to add to our long list of woes) it stopped working. It appears to be a battery problem. The unit has gone in to the agents, but so far, we have no news, but it would appear that the earlier models did have some problems with the built in battery packs, which have subsequently been sorted out in the newer models. It would seem that the agents will not repair the unit at this stage and there is talk of supplying me with a new unit at cost. At R3500 and a “Made in England” label, I rather expected more than a two year (used once per week) lifespan. I am disappointed with this product.

Anyway….on to the racing last night.

Very pleasant conditions with a fresh south easter promised good sailing. Craig Tarr couldn’t make it, so we brought Nic back at the mast position and Waldo Zevenster has taken Pinky’s place as genoa trimmer. Pinky and I have mutually agreed that he be benched for the rest of this season. He needs some "time -out"

At the start it almost looked like we could get away with the No.2 genoa, but the Cape Doctor invariably dishes up more than one expects, so we put the No.3 up instead, which turned out to be a smart decision. We also decided to try out our new red Quantum .6oz reaching kite. It’s an interesting sail with narrow shoulders and long leeches.

We opted for a pin end start. Only Sensation (L34) was down there with us, so we had an easy time of our start sequence and hit the line at speed quickly building to 6.3 knots. With the sea being relatively flat on the way up to the weather mark, we could consistently stay well over 6 knots. We rounded 4th behind a Fast 42 (Tenacity), Always Well (First Class 7.5) and Sensation.

We were the only boat to execute a gybe hoist and it paid off, as we we quickly got ourselves onto Sensation’s stern and stayed there surfing in their quarter wave, much to the frustration of their crew of hot shots. The new kite was setting nicely and at no stage were we even remotely out of control. I think this will prove to be a popular sail for us in breezes over 22 knots apparent.

We had an uneventful upwind leg after a seamanlike strike and mark rounding. Sensation took about 20 lengths on us on this leg. In addition, we had a Simonis 35 (Palucci) coming up under us to leeward. They rounded just ahead at the weather mark. The First Class 7.5 was going really well on the downwind legs and the crew seemed to be finding the right rig and sail settings for this boat.

We did another good gybe hoist and whilst Palucci’s crew were struggling to set their spinnaker, we pulled slightly ahead and were able to hold the bigger boat all the way to the bottom mark and still claim water. Waldo was settling in very nicely on the genoa/spinnaker trimming job and we experienced no hassles whatsoever.

On the final short beat to the finish, Palucci footed off for speed, whilst we stuck to pointing high. Once they tacked onto Starboard, I could see we would not clear them, so we went for a late tack under their bow – the net result of which was a text book lee bow on the bigger boat, much to the intense annoyance of their skipper. We then outpointed them and forced them to slow down and go to leeward of us and finish in our dirties. We crossed the line 3 seconds ahead of them, but on corrected time, we beat them by four and a half minutes.

The First Class 7.5 won the race on PHRF (which appears to be wrong and which I have queried with the handicapper this morning), followed by Sensation in 2nd place (they beat us by 31 seconds) and Smackwater Jack in 3rd. Our Table Bay Week IRC Champions (Laser 28 - Ukuzwana) came in 4th behind us by two and a half minutes on corrected time.

OK – So what has happened? The changes in crew have been highly effective. There is a renewed energy and optimism on the boat and most of all a pleasant calmness was present. These things made for a thoroughly enjoyable race. Above all, we sailed well and made hardly any mistakes. It was fun! Sailing back into the harbour there were smiling faces aplenty....and that's how it should be.

We have some new rules for 2006.
1. No excessive criticism of any competitors or boats.
2. No swearing directed at another crew member (punishment is a round of drinks in the pub)
3. All communication to be done in a civil manner
4. Every effort must be made to stay positive

NSRI Twilight 1
11th January 2006, SE 10-15 Knots, flat

Thanks to CREW: Dee, Chris, Ed, Diane, John and OOD: T Roberts



courses (race card)

Spinnaker Course A1 Start: 17h50 SE 12 Knots, calm
Sail #
Class Yacht & Skipper Club TCF
IRC TCC Finished Elapsed Corrected
Corr IRC Place

SA 3141
First 7.5 Always Well
Burger/Thomas 1.02
1.024 18 43 32 0 53 32 0 54 36
0 54 49 1
3
005
L34 Sensation
AR Munnik 1.015
0.97 18 45 8 0 55 8 0 55 58
0 53 29 2
2
SA204
J27 Smack Water Jack
T Roberts 1.005
0.938 18 46 12 0 56 12 0 56 29
0 52 43 3
1
SA 3082
Laser 28 mod keel UkuZwana
T Swana 0.97
0.914 18 50 31 1 0 31 0 58 42
0 55 19 4
4
SA 4242
Fast 42 Tenacity
E Stern 1.17
1.111 18 41 26 0 51 26 1 0 11
0 57 8 5
5
SA1245
Simonis 35 mod Palucci
Syd Kaye 1.08 18 46 15 0 56 15 1 0 45 6
13
RCOD Ariel
S Saville 0.925 18 55 43 1 5 43 1 0 47 7
SA 702
Charger 33 FTI Flyer
K Mattison 0.995 18 56 9 1 6 9 1 5 49 8

---

The Volvo In Port Race
Table Bay - Cape Town
26th December, 2005

The spectacle of the Volvo 70 fleet from close-up is quite intimidating – especially so from the very low decks of a J27, but a few of my regular crew and guests decided to head out into Table Bay, despite the fresh south easter in the forecast.

As we left the harbour a few of the Volvo boats were hoisting their mainsails and I noted, with interest that they actually reverse the boats under power when doing this. One by one the Volvo fleet headed off to the start area in a building south easterly, which would peak at a staggering 45 knots later in the day.

We watched Movistar hoist a man up the mast at such a fast rate, he looked like Spiderman – almost surreal. We decided the best place to watch the spectacle would be near the weather mark, so we could see exactly who was in the lead and watch the spinnaker hoists and downwind acceleration of these canting keel skiffs on steroids sailed by world class crews.

The first beat had nearly the entire fleet overstanding the weather mark. I would have thought with all those weeks in Cape Town, they would have accrued some local knowledge. Only AMRO 1 hit the layline correctly and rounded about 10 boat lengths ahead. I also thought they took a considerable space of time before setting their spinnakers - relatively slow for round the cans racing, but I must admit, the wind was howling. Of all the boats, AMRO 1 was the quickest with spinnaker hoists. The acceleration of the big boats is thrilling to watch. Even the chase boats were having a problem keeping up on the downwind legs.

Pirates of the Caribbean were grimly holding onto 2nd spot, but the combination of the gybe and the Cape Doctor proved too much for them and they broached in spectacular fashion, immediately allowing the next two boats through. Each of the three gybes saw Pirates in trouble with broaches and it cost them dearly. It was hard to believe it was a world champion helmsman getting himself into so much trouble! I had a look at the video footage the next day (and whilst I am no Volvo 70 expert) and it seemed like they were not easing the mainsheet fast enough on the new gybe to me. [Subsequent to writing this report I have been informed that Pirates were having difficulties with the timing of moving the canting keel across to the new side, which was causing them to broach]

And so these big boats roared around Table Bay with double reefed mains and small headsails clocking up downwind speeds well in excess on 20 knots. Watching Mike Sandersons crew sailing AMRO 1 with such confidence was a delight and the stunning 7 minute winning margin over the second placed boat must have been a humbling experience for the rest of the crews.

I told my crew there and then that my money was on AMRO 1 to win the entire event. It was not much fun being a spectator in those strong winds, but it was worth every dollop of spray and discomfort. The Cape Doctor had humbled everyone – including all those world class crews on the Volvo boats.

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