Courage Cock 09-03-2019

This was an absolutely fabulous day of sailing at Abbey Meads!

What made it a great day were the very strong winds and the sunshine, as well as Peter and the boys doubling the size of our fleet. Forecast was 24-43 mph and whilst it was not quite that strong, the black slamming gusts on the water were about 30 with an average of about 15 to 20 mph. It was strong enough for all the small rigs, C1, C2 and C3 to be used.

Nathan was sailing in a Marblehead club race for the first time, using the 1990s ROAR EDGE and when I put his boat in the water he was absolutely amazed and delighted by the speed that it planed away from the landing stage. Wow! Oliver also enjoyed the fast downwind runs with ZOOM, another ROAR EDGE.

The plan to do work on the south bank landing stage was abandoned because our attention was on getting the boats in the right rig. As Mark only had a tall rig, he was lent a C1 swing rig from ROAR EDGE, which needed a bit of re-rigging in order to fit it to his UPROAR. Also the initial rig choice was too big for some and needed a rig change. However this did not apply to John Townsend’s ROK and Alan Viney’s PRIME NUMBER and they stayed in C1 all day, which often gave them some hairy runs with rudders in the air, but towards the end gave them an advantage as the wind reduced in strength. It is interesting to note that Alan’s smallest rig is a standard C1 and he has managed to survive this event and other events with strong winds, so it reinforces the argument that Marbleheads are not that expensive, because you really don’t need all those other rigs, even if they are nice to have.

Eight races were sailed over a long beat and run course and enjoyed by all, particularly the fast planing runs and the windward speed when heavily pressed. It was incredibly gusty and the swirls of the wind hitting the water were unpredictable, but very good if you caught a gust just right.

Roger’s UP won Race 1 in C2, but then let Martin win the next 2 races also in C2 with his PRIME NUMBER. It was then Alan’s turn to win Races 4 and 5 and this might have been 4 in a row had he not let Martin win Race 6. The final race was a triumph for John Townsend who had been doing consistently well, but who was absolutely delighted to win a race in this company. Young Oliver sailed all the races and was occasionally helped by Peter when he got into difficulties. This applied to Roger when the C2 kicking strap broke and both the UPs then sailed in C3, just to gain the experience. We had not used these rigs since they were modified after the last really strong winds at the eastern district ranking event at Chelmsford in 2015, which is shown on one of the photos that you open with the ‘home’ page of the website.

It was very interesting to be able to compare the heavy weather performance of the best of 30 years ago with our curregns, which is something that is not usually possible, and to see the progress made.

Peter and I stayed on and sailed our UPs in C1 doing trials, just as we might have done with vane boats, comparing the performance and then re-trimming the weakest boat up to the level of the other one and then working on the other one etc. We both learned something that was very useful.

GMYC members should not forget that you too have to enter the MERMAID through the MYA website. It is the easiest way to keep the paperwork in order.

Roger Stollery

See Gallery for photos of the event.