A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back - Not first... but not quite last, either.

Not first... but not quite last, either.

A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back

Sam and Alex Fortescue

Sun 3 Apr 2011 20:50

18:19N

64:38W

We haven't covered ourselves in glory from the race perspective. Over four days of racing, Los Escapados have been keeping up a fairly consistent pressure from the back of the pack. That's not to say we haven't beaten people; we've beaten plenty. But the problem is that, as one of the biggest beasts in the pack, we needed to beat more people by more in order to compensate for our size handicap.

As we all agreed, however, this is hardly the point. We've had four days of excellent racing in strong winds and fair weather around tropical islands. This, on any scale, is time exceedingly well spent. Add to this the really excellent company of our hosts, Ian and Dominique, and of their friends on both the racer and the cat, and it all adds up to a pretty splendid week. We've all taken turns helming, sail trimming, tacking etc. But probably our best performance was under the skippering of Paul, many times dinghy sailing champion. He had us tacking between the other boats with just inches to spare, bellowing 'starboard' at anyone within range to force them to keep clear, and generally applying tactics where only instinct had reigned before. Most of the marks are islands, which makes for some interesting 'go as close as you dare to the rocks' type sailing. We had our fair share of adrenaline moments, too, and the funny thing about it is that you go to bed (usually well before 10pm) every night thinking how nice it would be to have a day lounging on the cat, sunning oneself, but by the next morning, the bit is back between the teeth and we're raring to race again.

Yesterday saw us slip a little further down the rankings, in spite of some pretty awesome moments of inspired sailing. In the second race of the day, for example, Beatriz was at the wheel as we inched up to the finish with a bunch of other boats. The wind suddenly dropped and backed onto the nose, pushing us onto a course that took us just wide of the line. An American boat we'd been chasing for most of the course, who has trouble pointing as high on the wind as us, was surprised by the wind shift just 100m from the line, and she tacked accordingly. We also had to tack, but made a much better job of it. Now both boats were sailing slowly parallel to the line, about 50m out. We both tacked again at the same moment onto a course that took us over the finish, but a mixture of our superior pointing ability and excellent helming allowed us to finish just five yards ahead of our American competitor, who was left fuming next to us. Earlier in the day, we'd had something of a contretemps with a locally crewed boat of four men, none of whom can have weighed much less than 200 pounds. We'd gone onto a port tack mid fleet and tried to cross ahead of a boat who had priority on starboard. By the time it was clear we wouldn't quite make it, evasive manoeuvres were out of the question, and we relied on the other boat's crew bearing away around us; this they did, with some serious ill grace (as is their right). Luckily, they recognised that we were a bunch of amateurs, and didn't call in a protest. But they were again looking pretty angry as we caught them up round the next mark, and proceeded to pull away on a beam reach in light and flukey airs. They had a crack at some nifty luffing manoeuvres, but we held them off and beat them to the finish. All the same, we reckon we should buy them all a beer at tonight's closing party to make up for our blunder.

Meanwhile, there was special treatment aplenty for the Richard Branson catamaran, Necker Belle. With barely concealed sycophancy, the race organisers would simper instructions over the VHF, along the lines of, "we're so pleased to have Necker Belle with us today, I think you'll agree she's pretty gorgeous ladies and gentleman. We ask that you give her an especially wide berth as she crosses the starting line, because it takes time for her to get up to speed. Then, we'll postpone the other starts to allow her to get clear."

This boat is a kind of silver stealth catamaran - like the Tilsonator, but wind-powered. And when she failed altogather to get her mainsail up in time for the first race, they postponed all the starts to give her a chance to sort it out. This lead to much hilarity onboard Los Escapados, as we tried to come up with 101 excuses to call in for a postponement. "Committee boat, this is Los Escapados. The skipper's chipped a nail, and we're requesting five more minutes to reapply nail varnish. Roger that on 69..."

Today, though, is a day off. Instead of racing in the last of the regatta days, we're lounging about onboard with a view to sailing to Jost van Dyke, a BVI known for its beaches and restaurants. There was a large scale mutiny onboard, graciously accepted by the skipper, in favour of spending the day with the two boats together by a beach. Tomorrow sees the European crew return to an alleged 27 degrees in Brussels, while Summer Song will carry on for the long hop to Cuba. We're not yet sure whether we'll spend a couple more days in the BVI, but I suppose all will depend on how favourable the weather is for the 800-mile westward passage. We're getting used to the luxury of Los Escapados (she has a freezer, a shower and heads in each cabin, bathing platform etc). But after putting the boat through her racing paces, we're both keen to get back onboard Summer Song and try out some of what we've learned about tweaking sails and getting more speed out of her. Of course, weighed down with tonnes of extra gear for the crossing, she'll be no spring chicken around the cans, but I'm certain we can get her to sail more effectively in the future. There's also the potential excitement of another downwind sail, with the spinnakoo aloft. But it will be tempered with the sadness of leaving behind such good friends...

Great White, the aptly named catamaran: a giant of the sea