Day 1 - The start
Trippwire
Fri 27 Nov 2009 17:01
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We woke up to a hive of activity, and apart from
rigging the spinnaker lines, had little to do other than getting some breakfast.
By 10 am the loudspeakers on the quay had started to play lots of rousing music
(even the odd gregorian chant, which I am not entirely sure could be classified
in the 'rousing' category!), which added to the atmosphere, and I think perhaps
rather enhanced (well from the crew's point of view), my skippers briefing to
the crew (which went along the lines of do as I say and not as I
do...particularly on the tidyness front!).
After our goodbyes to a couple of friends that we
had made on the pontoon, we headed off, with, it has to be admitted, a few
butterflies in the stomach. After stooging around for a while, we put the main
up with the aim of getting to see the start of the racing division which had
some very large boats. 20 minutes later it was our start, and with a downwind
start, we aimed for around the middle of the line, in mainly clear air. We did
not hit the line on the gun, but were pretty close, and importantly we managed
to find clear air and avoided pranging any other boats. The spinnaker went up
cleanly and we were off!
The first few hours were spent sailing down the
eastern side of Gran Canaria, and we had all been briefed on the 'acceleration
zone', where the wind generally picks up from 15 knots to up to 35 on the south
eastern end. We were assured that we would see it because the racing class
(which started 20 minutes before us) would be broaching out. Our only issue was
the the very fast boats headed off under aysemetric and were well away from
where we would enter the zone. Finally Trippwire came into her heritage and we
were soon nearly a mile out at the font of the cruising class, along with 2 swan
48's...importantly leaving boats such as the swan 110 behind us! The
acceleration zone came progressively, with the wind picking up from 15 to 20 and
then 25 knots. My original plan was to have the spinnaker stowed by this stage,
but as always, in the heat of competion and given our impressive showing, that
plan was abandoned, and we were soon surfing at 14knots....then 15, then
16...and finally I am sorry to admit, my nerve gave out.....we were piling down
waves having stacked the boat with 2 tonnes of water, beer, wine and food, and
we were doing some very heafty nose diving, and a wipe out at 16 knots would
turn down below into something of a vegetable firing range! Anyway, so ended a
few of the most memorable spinnaker action
By the time we had finished, it was dusk, and so we
took a reef in the main, poled out the genoa and importantly cracked open the
gin and tonics!
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