PDYC - 2016 Maytham Regatta

Last weekend was the annual Maytham Regatta for the Race Division of the Port Dover Yacht Club. I was on the Committee Boat for Friday night and Saturday and then raced on Caleidascope on Sunday.

The Friday night race was a new addition to the regatta last year and the boats found it difficult to find the tetrahedron in the dark (also the Committee Boat, as we found out when we got out there that we had no working running lights).

Our first job was to attach solar lights to the tretrahedron.

Out of the harbour

scaring up the resident flock of terns and gulls.

We had a good turnout for the regatta with 16 boats out. This is Flyer and Shaibu.

They sailed past the committee boat and let us know whether they were going to compete with the spinnaker fleet (Spinn)  or just use their jib and main (JAM). This is Goldfingers.

We had 8 boats competing in each fleet. This is Le Loup Marin.

Kestrel

Ritual and Sequence

There was a good breeze and we had no problems starting them off. First the JAM fleet

and then 5 minutes later, the Spinn fleet.

On the committee boat we sat and chatted, ate what we had bought with us for supper and shared some snacks.

Watched the sunset

and the moon rise.

Then the wind began to drop. We could hear some chatter, on the radio, between the competing boats, the prevailing wisdom was that it would increase again. Wrong! Soon it was dead calm. Then we heard our first mosquito. Soon they were swarming, as were the fish flies. The bug situation was made worse by the fact that we had to show lights (including a flashlight) so the fleets could see us and the finish line.
We started the race at 6:30pm, shortly after 9, Ritual radioed in that they were withdrawing as they knew they could not complete the course in the allotted time (9:30pm). It didn't take long for the rest of the boats to follow suit. We motored over to the tetrahedron and found that the solar lights had worked very well, it was covered in bugs.
We motored back in, under the bridge at 10pm. The first race of the regatta was abandoned!

The forecast on Saturday was for high winds and was accurate, for a change. On a different committee boat (Unison, a trawler) we motored out and after setting the tetrahedron (minus its necklace of lights), we tried unsuccessfully, in a torrential downpour,  to moor to the central buoy (Happy Face). In the 6ft+ waves we managed to lose a boathook, get soaking wet and bruised but not get moored. We motored back in to the harbour to regroup and the race organizer asked us to go back out and try and stay near the start line and start them off. Out we went again but this time the skipper of Unison decided it really wasn't safe (he was up high on the fly bridge and still getting soaked by the waves breaking over the bow). There are no pictures of Saturday, too wet, too rough for photos. At about 11:30 the second race of the regatta was abandoned.

On Sunday I raced on Caleidascope (the skipper had had a golf game on Saturday - priorities??)

Paul, Mark and Rick on Caleidascope.

Unison making her way out to the race course an a much more hospitable day.

We had a lovely day of racing in shifty wind. Because there were only 4 of us we competed in the JAM fleet (we usually sail spinnaker but that really takes 6  people). In the three races we had 2 first place finishes and a third and that put us in first overall. For that we won a gift certificate from Bridge Yachts (the regatta sponsor) which will come in very handy as there is always something to break on a sailboat (just last week we broke a block and realized that one of the winch handles was not unlocking properly).
We finished the day with dinner (beef on a bun, salads, dessert) and drinks (the bar was open) at the yacht club.