RACING 2008
BUTE RACING
John Highcock May 18, 2008
John Highcock gives a first hand account of the racing on April 26th 2008:
S.W up to 30kts (wet) dying later to 15-16kts swinging to the west (sunshine!). The first of the Clyde cruising clubs racing events for 2008 got off to a breezy start.
A little confusion on the class 1 start as Carmen and Salamander seemed to be the only yachts near the line. The First leg to Toward was a one tack beat/fetch in 25 to 30+ in the gusts. We started with Carmen and headed off to Toward. The sea to begin with was a bit lumpy, keeping good pace with control required a lot of ease on both main and jib. We did well up the first leg, managing to keep a clear lane and kept the bigger boats behind us for at least half the leg. At Toward we rounded third in class Playing Ft$e about 3 mins ahead then Duckwall Pooley about 1min ahead. We were just ahead of the chasing pack of yachts. As we bore away to go towards Ardmaleish point the breeze eased slightly and we hoisted the Asymmetric and promptly feel in to a hole. Back up with the jib and got ourselves back into the breeze without losing to much to the chasing pack. As the breeze eased on the long fetch up the East Kyle we changed from #3 to #1. Without the help of a larger overlapped headsail Duckwall and Ft$e pulled further a head with Moorish Idol passing us and Tanit and Sloop John T closing us down very quickly.
Down the East Kyle we hoisted the Asymmetric a couple of times when we thought we could gain distance or position on our course. As we neared Colintraive the wind went ahead and we started to beat (15-16kts) up towards the islands. We managed to pull back well through this short leg. As we went through the narrows we were back along side Duckwall and opened a gap back up on Sloop and Tanit. On the approach to Tignabruich and Kames the Scottish lottery started, the wind true to form for its direction became predictably light (0-8kts) and shifty beat. We concentrated on boat trim and sailing fast in what patch of breeze we had and looking for the next patch down our route. Ft$e at this time looked to have come to a complete stop and could see them getting closer as they tried to make headway against the tide. We decided to stay on the rhum line as much as possible and not get dragged towards the Kames shore. We pulled ahead of Duckwall as they were changing to there #1 and Moorish Idol who got a little to close to the Kames shore line. As we approached the West Kyle at Kames the wind died and the chasing pack closed us down very quickly. Duckwall was going remarkably well in the 3-8kts and managed to just pull ahead of us. We stayed on the Bute side as we entered the West Kyle, the breeze started to fill in initially from Kames and then more westerly (15-18 kts) which brought us on course nicely. Down the reach towards Inchmarnock we used an outside sheet on the jib to gain a little more speed by reducing the twist in the headsail leech. As we made our way down toward Inchmarnock we tried different position of crew to get the best speed.
As we headed toward Garroch Head, we hoisted the Asymmetric and had a fabulous sail, surfing every now and then in breeze and sunshine. As we bore away around Garroch Head we peeled to the Symmetric which we kept up all the way to Hun1 at Largs. With a short leg to the finish of Largs Yacht Haven we consolidated our position and finished third over water, first on corrected time. All in all it was fairly quick 5hrs 15mins and finished in sunshine, what more could you ask for!
