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Chester Race Week
Aug. 15th, 2014 04:09 pmThis week is Chester Race Week. If you look back 10 or 15 years you'll see lots of fun posts about Race Week, but over the years it's lost some of its sparkle. I don't think I've even mentioned it here over the past year or two.
Yesterday's race was a long one - 4.5 hours. And it was crazy. The wind was up to about 35 knots (about 64 km/h or 40 mph which, to be clear, is a lot of wind) And there was a lot of carnage to go along with it. Half of the boats in our fleet didn't finish the race. A good friend of mine lost his mast in his race. He's done for the week - maybe the season. In one of the classes there were only 2 boats. We did ok. I fucked up the course though, so it added probably an extra 5 minutes to our time which would have put us in a medal position. (Warning, going to post how I screwed it up and you will want to nod off for a bit. Hang in there...) The race committee called out the course. 13s, 10p, 13p, mountain p, 10p, 13p, finish. Each number represents a mark. (The letters indicate if you should take the mark to port or starboard.) 13 is Coachman's bell, 10 is New Harbour bell. There is also a mark called Mountain, and it's number 11. However, there is also an ISLAND called Mountain. I interpreted the course as 13, 10, 13, 11, 13, finish, and instructed Thom to go around Mountain mark. The race officials, however, intended for us to go around Mountain island. Of course, I got blamed for us not doing better in that race. In hindsight, I'm pretty sure there wasn't much I could do differently. My interpretation was wrong, but it never dawned on me that they'd mean Mountain Island and not the mark, though in hindsight if they used all the other numbers, saying the word "mountain" probably should have tweaked something somewhere.
Anyway done now. But it was a shit show to say the least. That's a lot of wind, and our skipper expects us, as experienced crew to sail it as if there was no wind. I threw up. A couple of times. The fact that we finished without carnage or bloodshed is pretty incredible as far as I'm concerned.
Today, however, I woke up with a wicked migraine, and I called in sick. I'm only just getting out of bed now. Pretty sure I'm going to get a tongue lashing tomorrow about it. Unfortunately, however, when you're throwing up on dry land, I'm pretty sure you're not going to straighten up when you're on a boat.
Hooray Race week.
As you were...
Yesterday's race was a long one - 4.5 hours. And it was crazy. The wind was up to about 35 knots (about 64 km/h or 40 mph which, to be clear, is a lot of wind) And there was a lot of carnage to go along with it. Half of the boats in our fleet didn't finish the race. A good friend of mine lost his mast in his race. He's done for the week - maybe the season. In one of the classes there were only 2 boats. We did ok. I fucked up the course though, so it added probably an extra 5 minutes to our time which would have put us in a medal position. (Warning, going to post how I screwed it up and you will want to nod off for a bit. Hang in there...) The race committee called out the course. 13s, 10p, 13p, mountain p, 10p, 13p, finish. Each number represents a mark. (The letters indicate if you should take the mark to port or starboard.) 13 is Coachman's bell, 10 is New Harbour bell. There is also a mark called Mountain, and it's number 11. However, there is also an ISLAND called Mountain. I interpreted the course as 13, 10, 13, 11, 13, finish, and instructed Thom to go around Mountain mark. The race officials, however, intended for us to go around Mountain island. Of course, I got blamed for us not doing better in that race. In hindsight, I'm pretty sure there wasn't much I could do differently. My interpretation was wrong, but it never dawned on me that they'd mean Mountain Island and not the mark, though in hindsight if they used all the other numbers, saying the word "mountain" probably should have tweaked something somewhere.
Anyway done now. But it was a shit show to say the least. That's a lot of wind, and our skipper expects us, as experienced crew to sail it as if there was no wind. I threw up. A couple of times. The fact that we finished without carnage or bloodshed is pretty incredible as far as I'm concerned.
Today, however, I woke up with a wicked migraine, and I called in sick. I'm only just getting out of bed now. Pretty sure I'm going to get a tongue lashing tomorrow about it. Unfortunately, however, when you're throwing up on dry land, I'm pretty sure you're not going to straighten up when you're on a boat.
Hooray Race week.
As you were...