Welcome to Yachting Girls

Welcome to a blog where the adventures of a team of crazy women who are mad about sailing can be shared.
We are living in the beautiful Huon Valley in Tasmania, surrounded by outstanding sailing waters.  In June 2007 my husband and I purchased a Columbia 27 cruising yacht.  My husband crews in a Top Hat 24 in the races held by the Port Cygnet Sailing Club so our yacht was going to sit idle for most of the sailing season.  A great idea came to us - lets have an all women crew and take on the men!

Follow our adventures...share our laughs...cheer us on...

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Twilight Race 1

We had our first twilight race yesterday and it was quite an adventure.  Racing starts at 6pm so we were out on the water and ready to sail at 5.20pm.  This was the first real race with the all girl crew so we were all a little nervous.  Anne was on the tiller, my job was the main sheet and also to assist with tacking - mainly working the winch handle, and Janet was handling the jib sheets. Coach Harry would have been proud of us.  We had some issues with timing the start.  The wind was consistent and quite strong for the time of day and the lovely Cygnet Bay and we were finding it difficult to keep the speed down so we did not cross the line before the starting horn.  Reefing in the self-furling jib helped considerably and we made a fantastic start. Heading towards the first mark and we were well in the mix with 5 yachts in front and 9 behind us as we crossed the start.  at the first buoy there was quite a traffic jam and we had some difficulty getting around the mark without a collision with other boats but we went well and were still well in the mix. We decided to stay well out and head down river somewhat so that we could make the next mark in the triangular course with only one tack. A few of the guys decided this was appropriate also and we unfortunately were forced to tack when one ahead of us tacked across our bows. This meant that we needed to do more tacks at the next buoy and in some pretty heavy traffic.  We were able to keep up with most of the fleet but had lost quite a bit of ground.  A good run back to the start finish line was marred when we ran into a hole in the wind but we were able to pass a couple of yachts and maintain this lead over the last loop. A good run down to the last turn and we were neck and neck with three other vessels.  Again the flukey wind made us loose ground and we ended in a tussle with a 32 footer to make the line. We finished ahead of three yachts and in particular ahead of Phil who can be quite obnoxious and pushy on the water.  On handicap we were 13th out of 16 yachts with Phil coming in 7th. How that works out when his yacht is bigger and he has been doing well all season amazes me. We did not get to see what our handicap time was so will be checking this out when we get the results posted next Sunday.  I cannot see how a bigger yacht than us can possibly be 7 places ahead in the results when we crossed the line a few minutes ahead of him?  
Regardless of placing and handicaps - we had a great time and we as girls pulled together well.  We need to work on the smoothness of our tacking and we are getting a bit muddled in doing our jobs but things will improve as we meld together. It was a happy and satisfied crew that finished the race. Yes we still have problems of getting in each others way but we will improve I am sure.  Perhaps our coach can help us smooth out some of the problems when he gets back.  (Harry does a lot of interstate yacht transfers and is currently in Sydney New South Wales preparing to bring Lorna and Trevor's new yacht down to Tasmania) 'Til next time...

No comments: