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
Over the weekend I joined 12 of the other RYA keelboat squad members for the first training weekend this season aboard the tp52, John Merricks II. We had a very positive two days sailing, being able to keep the boat under control, most of the time. We were fortunate enough to be joined by a couple professional sailors who were able to teach us all a lot, especially my self. Even though this is not the type of sailing I enjoy the most, it is still very exciting and definately worth while, due to how much I learnt.
For this week, I am working aboard a newly launched Class 40. The boat is being measured later in the week and then it is sailing to Germany. So, it is going to be a busy week where I should learn a lot especially about the measuring and testing of offshore racing yachts.
The sailing season is now rapidly getting underway with more and more boats on the water and racing each weekend. My main aim for the season, is to get my Mini Transat campaign up and running. In the meantime I am aiming to get as much more short handed and offshore sailing as I can by competing in the RORC races as well as hopefully the double handed fastnet. We also plan to attend many more match racing events with the hope of improving our ISAF ranking and going to some higher graded events.
Sam
Last day of Training before New Zealand
We have now completed our last day of training before we leave for New Zealand on Wednesday. This weekend, we had another match racing team come to Oxford Sailing Club for some training. We mainly focused on our Pre-start but also did some other general tactics on situations that may come up. With this final productive weekend, we are now ready to go to New Zealand and give it our best shot and hopefully return with an acceptable result.
Also in the last couple weeks, we got some more training on the SB3’s at Farmoor Reservoir to improve our crew work. Also, after doing my sextant sightings on my last Atlantic crossing I did my Yachtmaster Ocean exam and fortunately passed.
The whole crew will have arrived in Auckland by the morning of Saturday 7th February, and then have the weekend to acclimatise and recover from the flight as much as possible. We are going to go sail the Elliot 6’s on Monday and Tuesday, on Wednesday there is a pre-event training day and then the event runs from Thursday 12th February to Sunday 15th February.
Once in New Zealand I will up date this Blog as regularly as possible and keep you updated on our training and results.
Sam
