SORC Wonky Mainsail Trophy
by Nigel De Q Colley 7 Jun 2013 17:29 BST
31 May - 2 June 2013
Racing for the SORC Wonky Mainsail Trophy © SORC
The Dean & Reddyhoff sponsored Solo Offshore Racing Club Offshore Series, from the Solent to Portland and back, was a great success. Summer arrived, along with lots of wind shifts and light airs, to make a challenging event won overall by Frederic Waniart on "Maeva", who had sailed over from France specifically to take part. He sailed back to France with the Wonky Mainsail Trophy, a real broken mainsail batten car of Ellen McArthur's round the world "Kingfisher".
Leg 1 - Royal Thames in the Solent to Portland
1700hrs Friday 31st May 2013
Fifteen yachts made the start on Friday evening. The start was not without incident. First, the committee boat picked up a lobster plot around its propeller. It looked like the race would have to be started "off station" until a dive boat arrived in the nick of time and the scheduled start was made after a small 5 minute AP. Secondly, the Offshore Race Director's boat, Fastrak, also picked up a lobster pot wrapped twice around its keel. The dive boat was summonsed again and Fastrak was able to start behind the main fleet and had some catching up to do. Thirdly, the Race Director's boat, Solan Goose, ALSO picked up a pot just as the race started. Fortunately he managed to extricate himself to continue the race. Was this just coincidence or was there a dark & sinister plot going on behind the scenes?
So the race unfolded in champagne sailing conditions on a warm and sunny summer evening into a 10 knot variable NNW breeze. Marginal Code 0 conditions, for those lucky enough to have them, was order of the day until just past the Shingles when the breeze swung more towards the WNW. The amazing wind sheer on the one hand showed that the downwind sails could still be flown, but the reality was we were beating with the kites up!! The race evolved into a beat towards Portland with those boats heading for the cliffs past St Albans coming out best. As Portland approached the lee bow effect of the tide, with a shift in the wind, allowed the fleet to straight line it to the finish.
The race was won by the smallest boat in the fleet, the very well prepared Super Arlequin "Maeva" sailed by Frederic Waniart from St Brieuc in Brittany. Maeva came in 16 minutes on corrected ahead of the HOD 35 Truant (Stephen Thomas) in 2nd, and J122 Jbellino (Rob Craigie) in 3rd.
Leg 2 - Portland to Solent
0800hrs Sunday 2nd June 2013
After a fleet chill out on the Saturday, with a group breakfast, general fiddling around on the boats and a fleet dinner in the evening, racing recommenced for the return leg on Sunday. After a short AP to allow the fickle breeze to fill in, racing got underway into a light and variable northerly breeze allowing those with Code 0's to pull ahead of the white sail fleet. But everything changed at St Albans! the wind stopped as soon as you got around the harbour and a weakening foul tide allowed the whole fleet to bunch for, effectively a re-start. The options between working your way up the cliff in a weaker tide to going out a bit for a steadier breeze was finally balanced.
Ding Dong, with Chris Rustom, went up the cliff, found his own private band of breeze and was off on his own race across Christchurch Bay, to the finish which was shortened at North Head, just off Milford Beach. The rest of the fleet gybed their way across the Bay, some gaining and some losing, symmetric versus asymmetric, many engrossed in private duels. Plenty of sudden wind shifts meant you could be flying along with the A2 up one moment, and seconds later you would be beating with it!! So plenty of sail changes kept the fleet busy.
Ding Dong finished 50 minutes ahead of the next boat, and then there was a sudden rush for the finish. A hole in the wind hovered over the finish area allowing the whole fleet to converge from their various routes across the Bay with 9 boats finishing within 6 minutes of each other. A cruel twist at the finish was a sudden wind change literally yards from the line, meaning these 9 boats had to douse spinnakers and raise genoas to make the line, which must have been entertaining for the fans on the beach front!
In amongst the mayhem at the finish sailed in Maeva (Super Arlequin –Frederic Waniart), coming from nowhere and with Breton music playing at full blast, calmly picking her way through the chaos and crossing the line to win Leg 2 overall by a massive 37 minutes on corrected time. The man from France had done it again!!! Behind her in 2nd place was Ding Dong (Stewart 37 – Chris Rustom) and in 3rd place Wookie (First 31.7 - Rupert Williams).