phuket race week day 3

My Internet went down at the hotel i was staying at in Thailand so I missed sending out news of the last few days of racing.

Day 3 was a beauty 20 - 25 knots and a decent swell started to cause havoc with the fleets. We began the day with a long race around the outer islands. We had a brilliant start but there were a couple of green looking team members right from the start. (didn't help that they had only had 2 hours sleep and were already looking green before hoping onboard.)

we worked the left side of the beat and managed to hook into some nice left hand breeze we tacked over to lay the first island on Starboard tack. At this stage one of the boys began to feel really sick he was on the windward rail and began to spew son the side of the boat. The big problem here was that the wind was at 18 knots and as the spew left his mouth the wind would pick it up and send it all over the crew. everyone left the rail in search of cover. We had 4 of us cowering on the floor of the cockpit in fits of laughter trying not to get covered in more stomach liner.

We slipped around the tip of the island and bore away to hoist our nice big A symmetrical Gennaker. We got it to the top of the mast and heated on, it cracked into life and the speedo roared up from 6 knots to 8 knots (wow you got to love keel boat racing for an adrenalin rush.)

the difference for an extra two knots being the boat is now leaning right over the loads double and we push twice as much water. So we had a lesson on heavy weather tight reaching. We worked on de powering the boat easing the main then the Vang and trying to send the bow down to decrease the angle of heel. hard work in a keel boat when the rudder looses grip with not too much warning. by the end of the leg we had really good communication and the boat beautifully balanced and under control.

we bore away to a down wind course downed the Gennaker and hardened up to round the marker and head off for the next island. it was a long port tack to the next island and we worked hard on boat speed to keep one of our rivals off our hip. We sailed well up past the island and hooked our Gennaker up one last time for a short blast to the finish. (it was one of those situations where the wind angle tempts you to put a kite up but its a boarder line call its tight your on a lee shore and the wind is gusty.) we decided to play it safe and take a little height first to give ourselves some sea room. after 2 mins we hoisted and had a shocker the kite didn't make it to the top, the jammer didn't stop the halyard and the jib came down all at once and we were heading for the beach. luckily the boys scrambled well and we got the jib back up spinnaker back down and we 2 sailed back into the finish. in hind sight it would have been good to stick with the jib. some times less is more especially in a short leg.

In the afternoon we had a short windward leeward race. It was a slightly skewed course pin end favoured long port tack beat, and a bear away set at the top mark. most boring course you can even imagine. But due to the simplicity we got the start we wanted and stormed away to a credible 3rd place. So it was another successful day with a 4th in the first race.

We headed back to the beer tent for some refreshments, a swim in the infinity pool, a cheeky chocolate thick shake. We couldn't hang around long cos none could wear their shirts due to the chunder marks down our backs so we took off back to our hotel to get changed.

Our team got a mention on the www.sail-world.com/asia website

'Angry Rob' Heilkema on Endeavour of Whitby said, 'it was the same course as yesterday, so we just made sure that we didn’t fall into same soft patches (but we still scored 5th both times). And it was really lumpy out there – there was a major ‘chunder from Down Under’ - and we had some pretty serious knitting problems. The afternoon race was a good deal easier, a windward-leeward with a pin favoured start and almost a fetch to the top.' Williamson’s office-wallahs scored 4th in race 6 to allow them to hold on to 4th overall, just one point in front of Toshio Furuta’s Mumm 36 Emma on 25 points (after a drop)."

A quote from the day before

"Right behind them was Stuart Williamson’s Endeavour of Whitby. 'We are very happy with our performance so far,' said Williamson. 'For a collection of office-wallahs with rather less experience than the division leaders I think were are making a pretty good showing!'"