(Report from the Convenor on Circe)
Dear Reader, make sure you’re sitting in a comfy chair with a cup of tea for this one!
A dry Sunday afternoon, and a bit of a breeze from the north west that freshened as the boats were leaving their moorings and heading for Blairvadach.
The usual call for an On The Water Race Officer (OTWRO) went out, but a resounding silence resulted in Circe becoming the RO. The untrained, voluntary RO!
The course was from start to D, then G and back to Y. I don’t know if Y has moved but it did appear quite far down the loch, resulting in a line which, when starting on a windward beat to G, favours the shore end. Remember that for later.
Catriona, Arke and Circe tucked tight into the shore line, with Dione a bit further down, and Athene and Thia further out. The boats set out on the upwind leg, most boats heading for the centre of the loch, whilst Circe took off along the Shandon shore followed by Catriona.
All was good until boats started to make their way from the centre of the loch towards D, and then the wind died and started playing games. Arke, who was more towards the Clynder side made good progress, Dione stayed centre and headed late into D and also made good progress and at D Catriona led from Dione, Circe, Arke, and then Athene Hermes and Thia.
Failing wind and running tide allowed Athene to touch D, and in the process of re-rounding gave way to Hermes and Thia before rounding. Between D and G, the wind went truly rogue, wind vanes span 360 degrees, spinnakers went up, then down, after beating to D it was then some more beating towards G and big holes appeared from nowhere. Dione overtook Catriona by G, Circe sat in a hole and watched Arke and Hermes sail on by even though she had been ¾ of the loch ahead and so at G it was Dione, Catriona, Hermes, Arke and Circe, Thia and Athene.
Rounding G, the RO in Circe checked the time…it was getting towards the hour cut off, and I (for it was me who was the RO) thought there was going to be no way that a boat would cross the line before the hour which means it would only be one round. However there were bits of wind and the boats kept moving. There was then a call from Catriona asking for clarity on whether we were going round again, and I then heard some verbal shouting between boats about whether we were going again (in reality, I don’t think anyone wanted another tortuous round given the variable and lacking wind).
So, how does the RO on the water, who can’t see how far away anyone is from the line, decide what to do? Catriona would be happy finishing after one round (a 1st), Dione, Arke, Hermes would all be happy, but Circe (having felt a bit hard done to by the wind holes) would have relished another round and a chance to re-coup some places, but I remembered the sage advice from Iain MacGillivray on a previous occasion that the SIs state how that decision is made, and it’s on the basis of the 1 hour cut off. I also realised that a second round was not favoured, so the instruction was made that, if a boat had crossed the line within the hour, the 2nd round would be YCY (to avoid that dreaded D mark) BUT that if no boat crossed the line within the hour then it would be one round. This complied with the SIs.
With 59mins and about 20 secs of elapsed racing, Catriona informed the fleet that she had not crossed the line yet. Given she had a bit of space, she had elected to sail down the line towards the Y, without crossing it. To aid the fleet, I counted down to the hour, whilst then seeing that Hermes had realised what was happening, that Catriona was not going to cross the line, so immediately bore away and headed for the shore end of the line. Whilst counting down, I followed, pointing straight towards the line.
At 1 hour and 1 second, Catriona announced that she was over the line, Hermes crossed 2nd, Circe 3rd, followed by Dione and Arke.
Between G and finish Athene overtook Thia.
To say that there was controversy would be an understatement. Dione was unhappy and suggested voiding the race, Arke pointed out that the OTWRO had no right to amend the 2nd round.
In my defence, I would say that I stuck to the Sailing Instructions (stating that the hour finish time remained) and I interpreted that ability of an RO (to be able to change the 2nd round course) as also being available for the OTWRO. Announcements were made over the radio, clearly and gave a countdown to the hour time limit. Anyone who didn’t hear the announcement on the radio has no defence (also stated in the SI).
Contributory issues were the angle of the line (a finish after one hour would have favoured the shore line, a 2nd round meant you had to stay heading towards Y), and also Catriona’s decision to stall from crossing the line (which she was quite within rights to do, and she had the space to do it).
Any boat could have headed into the shore to cross the line and secure the 2nd round, but that would have disadvantaged them.
Lessons learnt all round, and maybe a time to re-consider the wording of the SIs to clarify what the OTWRO can and can’t do. One negative impact will be that, when asked for someone to volunteer to be OTWRO, there will be even less takers!
1 Catriona, 2 Hermes, 3 Circe, 4 Dione, 5 Arke, 6 Athene, 7 Thia. RET Thalia.
PS poor Thalia suffered a rudder stock failure and retired.
