10 August 2006
Aspinall's Win AODR
Congratulations to Chris and Anna Aspinall who won the Anglesey Offshore Dinghy (Catamaran) Race on Sunday. The sailing conditions were fantastic and a lot more demanding (and fun) than my previous three entries which have all been a variation on what can only be called drifters.
I can't find a full set of results, so cannot officially report on Ian McLean & Iain Blair, Mark Emptage and Kate Spark or even my own position... although I can reveal that Jonathan and I retired, so I guess I know where we came fairly well.
The top three places were taken by Dart 18s, as reported by Y&Y. Reasons for this may vary depending on who's telling the story!
From my perspective I was determined to improve on Line Honours from last year but way down the order on handicap. Hence, I was well chuffed that White Tiger got an excellent start and led the way down the Straits under spinnaker, and continued to do so for the beats past the Red Wharf Bay Quarry mark, and almost to the Benllech mark, where we came a bit unstuck. Our problem was locating the mark - we rounded a buoy in what seemed be the right place, hoisted the kite again and sped off towards Moelfre, only to be advised by a speedboat crew that we'd missed the mark. It was a bit dispiriting to have to drop the kite and beat back up the course over the ground we'd just covered at speed in the healthy F4++ (Y&Y say F3-4 - I don't know where they measured that; we had some monster gusts the further up the course we went). By the time we laid the correct mark we were at the back end of the leading pack of F18s. They had looked a lot better over our rear beam than over the front one! We figured we were still within our handicap and only had to hang on, but probably still pushed too hard. We had a great spinni run from the correct Benllech mark until we thought we were ready for a reach to Moelfre - this was the sort of F3-4 that would not let you reach with the kite up - (i.e. more of a F4++!). Whilst blasting along, under some pressure to maintain ground against the F18s, we produced a pitchpole from nowhere, with both of us again landing in front of the boat. That dampened our enthusiasm a little, with neither of us now that keen to get on the wire despite the continued reaching.
Once past Moelfre we became aware of Chris gaining ground on us slowly but steadily, looking good: Jonathan boosted my morale substantially with repeated comments about how fast the Dart looked! I didn't pay them a lot of attention really - if a Dart is with me after that distance, I've lost. All I could hope was that they might make a mistake (or two) as we had, and hang on to at least beat the F18s on handicap. At this stage we were well past where should have seen the windward / top mark - but no sign. The cats at the top of the course appeared to be turning back, so we figured it must be ahead - or was it with the sports boats and jet-skis off to our right? You really can do without that sort of distraction when trying to sail fast, carefully. However, Chris and Anna were reaching just a little faster than us (we have twin wires, and if we want to be quick, we have to use them, both! rather than look at my post-pitchpole mangled one and let the crew stay on board out of pity). They looked good as they went past on our windward side, after a mile or two slowly reeling us in. They weren't long past us when we capsized again, this time nice and gently. As the hull rose, I looked over the far side and decided against falling onto the bottom hull, and went inboard, somehow landing with my back across the boom and, it seems, Jonathan's arm across the side stay. The boom was obviously the most pained, sporting an elbow that it didn't have moments earlier. However, after getting Jonathan to assist the old man back on board, he showed me a very red forearm and said he didn't think it was broken - to which my caring response was that he'd know if it was.
In the circumstances we figured the final mark was only a quarter of a mile away, downwind of us, but we were in no position to sail back from it without a boom. As we sailed back, accompanied by a guide boat, we made good progress in the wind but it was painful to be overtaken by pretty much all the remaining Darts. Worse though, I could see that Jonathan was shivering like a wobbly thing - dressed for action rather than inaction and now suffering as we slowly sailed in a cooling breeze for several miles back to Traeth Bychan. He refused my jacket, so I guessed the best thing to do was to get him back to the beach and have him run around for a while when we got there - unless he went blue and told me he loved me, in which case the support boat would be called into action!
We avoided another capsize at the finish line as we passed it to reach the beach - not our capsize but a monoslug that went over a few yards upwind of us. Expense was avoided as it slewed as it fell, just enough for its mast to clear our rigging and splash down behind us. We reached the beach to be met by the full Dee committee, comprising not only the sailors but also a good proportion of our Captain's team of rib drivers - Rich, Rob, Pete and Matt, as well as Dave Harris. Chris had passed word that we'd capsized and appeared to have damaged our spinni pole. Rich immediately noticed that Jonathan was not looking too good and was concerned by his shivering, only then to be shown Jonathan's arm which by this stage had swollen on both sides to give the appearance of now having three elbows - not nice. Dave whisked Jonathan off to hospital for a check up, which thankfully showed no breaks but a lot of bruising.
I guess that would normally be the end of the story. In this case though, I was faced without a Plan C. Plan A was for us to sail White Tiger back to Beaumaris on completion of the race, leaving Dave to collect our spoils. Plan B, in case of inclement weather, was for us to collect our spoils in person and then for Dave to drive me to Beaumaris where I could collect my car and trailer and face the nightmare of de-rigging at TB. There was no Plan C.
Kate was shedded after their trip, and Rich had already volunteered to sail with Mark, to return Wild Cat to Beaumaris. The Harrises had gone, and the rest of the rescue team were looking at White Tiger as if it were a wounded but still potentially lethal version of its namesake. It certainly did not look healthy with a boom that was imitating Jonathan's mishapen arm.
It's amazing what a free lunch can do. Armed with Jonathan's free meal tickets, and the soup and dessert portions of my meal, I appealed to the rescue team through their stomachs. I'd tried Kate, who really didn't fancy sailing a broken cat 17 miles in the state she was in, even if the first ten or so were downwind when the broken boom would not be noticed, much. I was still weighing my chances of sailing solo and badgering the rough toughies amongst the hard man squad of rib drivers as we carried Wild Cat down the beach to the receding sea. Then at last sanity broke out as Mark decided he could straigten my boom by bending it gently, only snapping it on one side of the fold as 10 degrees of imperfection was reached. Then Bert sprang into action. This what Bert does: Berts Builds Boats. Mark's paddle has a fairly solid shaft and his anchor has the requisite quarter mile of line (roughly). Some five thousand rotations later, my boom sported a paddle and an anchor line, and gave the appearance of being generally straight, if not what you might call channel-crossing robust given what we were to ask of it. Faced with such determination, Kate melted. She offered to sail back with Mark (personally I couldn't see why she wouldn't want to sail on White Tiger...) thereby allowing Rich to try WT under spinni power. Marvellous! And what a spinni run it was - we couldn't push it hard, and had to bear off from our course in the gusts more than I would have liked, but we reached the target of Puffin with the kite still up. The slog back up the Straits wasn't a lot of fun - I sheeted in to get some drive upwind but the boom did not want to play. There was still quite a bit of slack in the line despite the windings. It held though, and we got back without help - and in fact we were still faster up the Straits than the yachts around us, despite our 'injury'.
The Captain's Crew were there to meet us again, and what a great bunch to have around when you land after that kind of day - both cats were derigged and ready for the road in record time. I think it was down to the freshly brewed tea - they'd say it was the pint in the Liverpool Arms while they waited for us.
After all that, I'd lost sight of the results. We'd had an eventful sail, and a nasty moment or three had been overcome, Jonathan had been given the all clear and he was determined to sail again the next day, and we'd sailed home with smiles on our faces. Jonathan and I plan to return next year, in the hope that after four attempts we can now locate the marks on our own.
Meantime, well done to Chris and Anna - they did look like they were working for it - and they looked great on the water.
Simon Stannard
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