Monday, September 26, 2011


Spring regatta was sailed in False Bay from Friday 23 - Sun 25 September 2011. Michael, Heidi and Pieter entered the Beneteau First 44.7, Ray of Light in the IRC division, with the regatta incorporating the IRC nationals with 12 entries. Over the last year the boat has slowly been transformed from an ocean crossing cruiser into an IRC cruiser racer. In August Ray of Light had a 'bottom job' at RCYC. She was sanded smooth, had the through hull fittings and rudder bearing faired in and got a new coat of Chugoku Sea Grand Prix anti-fouling, expertly applied with an airless spray gun by Gerrie Heggie at RCYC. To match the bottom she was given a new set of Quantum carbon technora sails and had her mast professionally tuned by Francesco from Quantum. 
 
In order to encourage RCYC boats to make the 50 mile trek to false bay, the Pennypinchers Double Cape race was organised over two legs on the weekend before and after the Spring Regatta. Sadly the race to FBYC started off Clifton in less than 2 knots of wind. After drifting for two and a half hours, we unanimously agreed to fire up the yanmar and join all but two boats as retirees. Only the J133, Speed of Yellow and the Archambault 35, Docksafe had the patience to wait for the wind to fill in and complete the race in the middle of Saturday night. We arrived in Simonstown a couple of hours after sunset, after a pleasant day motor sailing. We were treated to spectacular views of Cape Point in the setting sun, rounding within a few hundred meters of the lighthouse in calm conditions. Special thanks to Luke Rademan who made the trip all the way from Langebaan to join us.
 
Spring Regatta was a different league for Ray of Light. It was the first time we had raced with a full crew of twelve. Although collectively we were a fairly experienced crew, we were lacking in experience racing 40 foot + boats on short courses around the cans. On the first day the wind built from around 15 knots SE, to over 20 with the odd gust in excess of 30 knots. Although we had arranged to meet at the boat early to get in some practice before the 1400 start, all the other pre-regatta odd jobs ate into our time and we arrived at the start line green. With Pieter von Bredow at the helm Ray of Light showed some promising speed upwind, however the lack of practice showed up downwind. On more than one occasion, by the time we had set the 150 m2 mast head S2 we were near the leeward mark and a mad scramble ensued to get the bag down, the jib up and gybe around the mark. At least twice we rounded the leeward mark with main only. Later in the day when the wind strengthened to more than 20 knots, we decided to leave the spinnaker below, a move that paid handsomely as the rockstars ahead entertained with some spectacular broaches, allowing us to sail by.
 
On day 2 the forecast 8-10 knot SE turned out to be a fantastic 15-20. We sailed better, however we still had our hands full trying to get the bag up, down, wooled and up again in relatively short sausage, sausage, triangle courses. None the less the crew was learning fast and on the day we successfully completed three gybes with the symmetric bag and both an inside and outside gybe with the assymmetric at the wing mark of the triangle.
 
On day 3 we took off one and a half turns on the fore stay bottle screw and seemed to find a new gear upwind in the 8-12 knot southerly breeze. We found ourselves mixing it up closer to the top of the fleet, and our spinnaker work was taken to new heights, with notable improvement in our sets, gybes and douses. However unfortunately we were forced to withdraw from the second race of the day when we managed to get the symmetrical truly wrapped around the fore stay. We sent a man up the mast to release the head and eventually recovered the bag without any damage. We finished the regatta on a high in the last race that was reminiscent of Saldanha as a light fog rolled in and the wind died.
 
After 8 races, in the end we finished tie 9th out of 12. Looking at the numbers, on the first two days on average we were of 10 minutes behind the winners on corrected time. On day three our improved crew work saw us narrow the gap to five minutes. Had we been a little better drilled, we may have been able to knock another minute or two off our time, and we would have been competing in the top half of the fleet. This gives us hope for the future. As we gain experience and if we are able to find and retain a committed crew, taking time to practice, we should be more competitive. The top three boats, Robert van Rooyen's modified Farr 38, AL, Phil Gutche's Landmark 43, Windpower and Gordon Kling's Lobelia were all excellently sailed and finished head and shoulders above the rest of the fleet. Congratulations to them. 
 
The regatta was very well organised and attended, with 66 boats in the various classes. Thanks to Intasure the headline sponsor for the regatta. This is definitely an event not to be missed and we aim to be there next year.

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