Sam Goodchild Sailing

Firstly, apologies for the over due update. After 19 days at sea, we finally sailed into Southampton earlier this week. Throughout the trip we had a big variety of conditions. We started off upwind, into 20 knots of trade winds,  then that slowly died away and we ended up motoring for a a night. It then slowly built again on the beam and we we’re reaching and then beating in very light winds. Shortly after that the wind built and we had a few days with the spinnaker up, regularly reaching speeds in the high teens and early twenties. About a week out, we had the hardest part of the trip where, for 4 full days we were tight reaching int 25-30 knots of wind, with regular squalls. Even though we were making good average speeds, almost every other wave was coming over the deck, which made being on watch a bit more miserable, especailly combined with the cold. So, the trip finished with a fast gennaker run into lands end and then a final 24 hours of motoring.

During the trip I learnt a lot about sailing these types of boats and a lot about the limits of where to push myself and the boats, to get the best out of them. There were also a few memorable moments, including one of the days where we averaged over 14 knots for 14 hours and hit a top speed of 23knots. Then a couple nights later when we spent an hour trying to get a spinnaker down at 4 o’clock in the morning, because it had got itself wrapped around the forestay.

The next planned event now is the 3 peaks race and the preceding 2weeks for the preparation. I am also, in the process of arranging my plans for the rest of this Month. Will now try and keep the updates regular again.

Sam

Unfortunately for various reasons, we are not going to leave for about another week. The skipper comes out to the boat early next week and then we will be heading off shortly afterwards. Even though its a pain, it has also given us a chance to sort out all the stuff that is on the boat a give it a clean.

At the moment, the Azores high is quite far north and, if it stays this way we will end up having to travel a lot further to get back to England. Therefore, our departure may depend on the forecasts of what is supposed to happen with that high pressure system. The aim will be to head north and go around the edge of this system, hopefully but unlikely, with the wind behind us as much as possible.

So far we have no definite leaving date but, are hoping to leave as soon as reasonably possible. For this delivery, we are going to have a lot of stuff on the boat which will slow us down a little but we are still hoping to make a fast crossing, possibly with a stopoff in the Azores to restock, depending on the route we end up taking.

Sam

Plans are starting to come together for this seasons sailing. By next week I will be in Antigua preparing this Class 40 for the crossing back. And, hopefully we will leave at the beginning of April providing the weather is looking kind. My plan is to then do as many of the RORC offshore races as I can and hopfully, by then we will have some of our Match Racing funding in place and we can start competing instead of training.

Over the weekend we had the two Match Racing boats at Oxford Sailing Club on the water and we’re doing some racing against Abingdon Schools NSSA team, helmed by our Match Racing teams bowman, Nick Wilkinson. We mostly focused on pre-start but, noticed the boats were very unequal which, puzzled us all day untill we came to winding up the keels and found out that one of them hadn’t been wound down.

A lot of the final plans for the events this season have not been finalised yet but, there are lots of options and hopefully it will be a successful one. I also hope to do some of the Mini Transat events with my own boat or crewing for another boat if I am unable to get use of one myself.

Sam