(Report from Arke.)
It looked, and was forecast, to be an afternoon of good wind – hopefully even strengthening slightly – if a little wet. Reader, it was none of these things.
After some chat about on-the-water race officer duties, Wendy kindly volunteered Hermes. And with a nice steady wind from the SW, they selected course H6: a beat first to B, then a cracking long downwind run (the longest we do?) up the loch to F on the Shandon shore, nestled in a little bay of moorings not very far south of Faslane itself. It looked like it was going to be fun. Reader, it was not.
After a very biased start(line) and an annoyingly moored yacht to be navigated right after the pin, the fleet was off. Good sailing across to B off Silvers. After some good sailing, Dione rounded first, closely followed by Ceres – going well this season. Then Arke and following her Catriona. Dione went high left to keep clear, thinking to be able to bear away later. Arke launched faster and got under Ceres. Ceres then went low and Catriona followed. At this point the wind lightened. The F mark now seemed a long way away indeed. Arke somehow managed to keep going through the middle, inexplicably leaving boats behind to both the left and right. Perhaps just the right combination of a lane of wind and less tide….? Who knows! They rounded the F mark a large number of boat-lengths clear of the rest. And set off across for a beat to C. And into some wind that seemed to have returned! Reader, it had not.
The rest managed to approach F with the mother of all overlaps (well half the day’s fleet): Dione on the inside, then Circe, then Ceres from Catriona. And they too all set off in pursuit. As Arke was approaching somewhere in the vicinity of the C mark the wind seemed to die entirely. And what puffs there were were seemingly random in direction. Perhaps just coming from whatever cloud was closest. Whatever rain cloud. That were now drenching us. Arke sat in a hole while the others at least seemed to have some wind out in the loch and slowly caught up. Catriona – never one to give up and showing mastery of the difficult conditions- did best and managed to get herself into second, threatening Arke. To add insult to injury, as she was caught, Thia – who had headed right of most of the fleet to the Clynder shore – picked up her own personal streak of wind and cruised from the back of the fleet to arrive first at the C mark. Catriona observed and got enough of it to get past Arke. Was that the end of it? Reader, it was not.
Arke managed past Thia with some slick spinnaker handling. And caught up to Catriona with guest helm on board. What to do? Arke went for the pass on some good wind and managed it. Clear ahead! Just at the critical point however – when one might have thought she had maybe snatched victory – the wind had other ideas and lightened and swung back. Catriona managed to get an overlap and sail her proper course at the mark forcing Arke up enough that she was sailing by the lee to lay it. Catriona brilliantly took the puffs to insinuate herself over and that was that. Thia held on for a good third. Circe managed to get Dione on the run. And we were all glad that one of the wettest, most fickle-winded afternoons was over.
But, reader, somehow, we still enjoyed it…
1 Catriona, 2 Arke, 3 Thia, 4 Ceres, 5 Circe, 6 Dione, 7 Hermes, 8 Athene
