Around French Island Catamaran Challenge 2022 at Cowes Yacht Club
by Gary Maskiell 11 Apr 2022 12:43 BST
Winners are grinners - Around French Island Catamaran Challenge 2022 © Gary Maskiell
Cowes Yacht Club have been trialling this event for a while and on March 19th this year the event was open to all OTB Catamarans with a Yardstick of 83 or less; a sensible cut off point, as in a straight line the course is about 70kms and expected to take four to five hours for the faster cats.
The cat rigged Mosquito with Spinnaker has a reliable rated yardstick of 76.5. This put me in division 2 which was mostly made up of Spinnaker rigged Mosquito's and Taipan 4.9's; so nowhere near as fast as the front runners with Yardsticks in the low 60's. This event was definitely going to be a Marathon not a Sprint!
Thanks to a generous sponsor the event was offering cash prizes from 1st to 10th place, with a total prize pool of $10,000 - a very rare occurrence in OTB sailing in Australia. The kicker was an entry fee of $100, reasonable when you think about it, as this Marathon is like doing 4 or 5 regular races.
Many sailors turned up Friday to start preparing for the midday Saturday start time, a sure sign that this race was being taken seriously.Some had travelled interstate from NSW, ACT and SA. Rigging up early allowed me time to fine tune my Cat Rigged Mosquito with Spinnaker, making sure everything was 100% right, even down to carrying a spare tiller extension and polishing the blades so the weed comes off easier (from past experience sailing on Westernport, floating seaweed can be a problem). As well locations had to be organised for safety gear specific to this race: 3litres of water, waterproof LED torch and TackTracker. The latter being a great innovation, not only is it a safety device, operating as a personal GPS locater beacon, but also it allows shore based following of the race, using the app on a phone, or watching on the screen set up at the club. Each boat was shown with the name of the skipper against it. You can still watch the complete race now, in real time (snooze alert) or speed it up here.
Saturday morning Cowes Yacht Club was a hive of activity, but the club was well organised and had planned ahead to cope with the large number of cars and trailers, as they only have a small amount of parking space next to the club at the bottom of a hill. Roads around the club were closed to through traffic and club volunteers organised trailer parking spaces for competitors, it all ran smoothly.
The wind was quiet strong early in the morning, but expected to drop to around 15knots for the start of the race. Getting boats on to the beach early was important, as there is only a single ramp to get down to the beach, because the beach has eroded to a drop off near the club compound. But there was plenty of beach space and as long as you kept an eye on the incoming tide, it wasn't a hassle. Mind you one Cat did manage to sail off the beach without any human assistance, only to be wrangled by the circling rescue craft.
Soon enough it was time to hit the water. Division 3 was set to start first at 12 Noon, followed by Div 2 and 1 at 5 minute intervals. The nerves really started to kick in: this was an OTB race like no other I had ever sailed in. Would I be able to pick out landmarks to work out where I was? How strong would the tide be in the narrow parts? Sailing single handed, would I have time to drink and eat? Would I be able to physically handle the rigors of hours on trapeze without a break?
About 50 cats milled around the starting area, but soon Div 3 (mostly Hobie 16's) was setting up to start, wouldn't you know it, they broke the start line and had a general recall, more waiting time. Finally Div 3 was away clean: then it was my turn. The Div 2 fleet jostled for position, then with about 30 seconds to go, bang! A Taipan had run into my leeward rudder: WTF, this could be my race over. Was the rudder lock down still intact? Was the rudder blade cracked? Were the rudder fittings damaged? All looked okay thankfully and then we were off.
The wind was about 15knots, but the sea state was very lumpy and it was difficult to keep my Mossie driving through the chop. My plan was to stick with the other two Mosquito's with spinnakers, as Matt Stone is an experienced Westernport sailor and Pete Kiely is a very experienced sailor in tide, both are very similar in boat speed to me, as we have been racing in very close competition for years now.
After about 20 minutes I had caught up to the back markers from the Division 3 start and the first of the Division 1 boats had caught up to me from their start 5 minutes behind. There was plenty of water, but there seemed to be boats everywhere and we hadn't even started heading North yet. I was still getting around the South end of French Island and my hips were killing me; it was flat trapezing conditions and my trapeze harness was pressing hard on my hips. Maybe I hadn't fully recovered from the rigours of racing the State Titles the weekend before.
Time to grit the teeth and go hard. Matt was proving hard to keep up with and Pete had headed North closer to the Island; I just had to keep working hard and keep up with Matt. At least we were heading North now, but when was this beat going to end? The wind had dropped a little and occasionally I had to come in off trapeze, rest time for the hips and time for a quick swig from the drink bottle on the boom and stuff some food down the front of the rashie, to eat while back out on trapeze.
One hour 40 minutes into the race and the sailing area had started to tighten up as we were passing Corinella on the mainland and a small Island in between there and French Island. There was a weird tide-line in the water around here; suddenly it went from choppy to flat water and the cats were no longer spread across a huge expanse. But still we were beating and it wasn't long before Westernport spread back out kilometres wide. Pete was back close by and Matt had pulled ahead a bit, but the flat water was nice and I think my hips had gone numb; trapezing wasn't as painful.
The wind continued to reduce in strength and now there were periods of sitting on the deck, down to about 10 knots I guess. I could see a point of French Island in the distance: surely this was going to be the end of the beat. But before I approached the Point at the Norteast corner of French Island, I made a major tactical error and dropped well behind the other two Mosquito's with spinnaker. Pete sailed closer to shore and got ahead of Matt, but Matt was smart enough to follow. I kept going out into open water; what a time to do it - nearly at the end of the beat and now I'm 100's of metres behind the other two!
Two hours 20 minutes and I was around the point at last! Still beating, but not having to tack. Westernport is narrower in this area and the wind was quite gusty coming off the mainland. The gusts were enough to get back on trapeze and I was able to stop concentrating on pointing and start working more on speed. It felt good easing the main a bit and getting the Mosquito flying on the flat water.
Gradually I was able to ease more mainsheet and then some traveller, now I was reaching and starting to get some distance back on the Mosquito's in front. We were in the area commonly called "the hump"; at the lowest tides most of it goes dry. But no problems today, the Cowes Yacht Club organisers have timed things well and it's water everywhere, not sure how deep it is, but as long as I have Cats ahead of me with centreboards, I should be safe.
Finally at Two hours 40 minutes, I pull up the spinnaker, just before Pete and Matt in the distance pull up their spinnakers. At last I'll be able to use my "Super Power": over 20 years of asymmetric spinnaker use, starting on larger multihulls before many asymmetric spinnakers were rigged on OTB cats, gives me the edge on the young blokes. It's tight and I have to get on trapeze to hold my course. A gust hits and the bows dip as I struggle to settle on trapeze, but then I get the settings right and I'm off, slowly chasing down the Mosquito's ahead and any other cats that don't have spinnakers. After 10 minutes or so, I'm able to come in off trapeze and bear away in the gusts, this is where the Mosquito with Spinnaker comes into its own and the VMG really climbs allowing us to be competitive with the faster spinnaker cats, as we sail slower but deeper, covering less ground.
After about 3 hours racing it's time for the first gybe, easy as the wind is steady. The water seems pretty shallow and Westernport is getting narrower again as we approach the Northwestern corner of French Island near Warneet and a few islands appear in front. A few more gybes and I'm past Pete and closing on Matt; now it's really on. I can see Hastings over to the right and Phillip Island way off in the distance.
Just off Hastings, 3 hours 40 minutes into the race and first Matt and then I pass Ant Richards on his cat rig Taipan 4.9. The Mosquito's with spinnaker are in the lead of Division 2 as we have the same Yardstick as the Taipan 4.9 cat rig; it's just boat for boat.
But wait, we can see the cats ahead slowing and stopping in a windless hole near Crib Point; the Around French Island Cat Challenge has one more challenge for us. Pete catches up as Matt and I go into the wind hole, spinnakers come down and then up and then down. The three Mosquito's with spinnaker are neck and neck for 5 or ten minutes trying to pick up any zephyr of wind. After some frustration I pick up the lightest of breezes from behind and slip away from the others and break away. I can see Cowes Jetty in the distance; I'm on the home stretch and leading my division on a tight reach, too tight for spinnaker, but that's okay, the water is flat and it feels good.
Four hours 35 minutes of racing, I'm at the Southwestern corner of French Island. Nothing but Phillip Island ahead and the details of the land at Cowes are getting clearer. Only about 5knots of wind but I'm moving okay and staying a safe distance ahead of the other Mosquitos. Then I see a Taipan passing Pete and Matt, its Ant and he's got a knot or two more speed than the Mossies! This is going to be trouble.
Half way across to Cowes, Ant is past me; the Taipan 4.9 cat rig is just skimming the windward hull, while mine are both stuck in the water. That tall rig is just too powerful. I can see the last turning mark half way between the Cowes Jetty and the Yacht Club now; we have to round this to starboard and head to the finish.
But the tide has other ideas: it's ripping across our course. I can see cats ahead having to tack to get around it, so I point higher. But all of a sudden it's a struggle to make the mark hard on the wind; I manage to scrape around the mark without touching it, but have lost more ground on the Taipan. Around the mark, put the spinnaker up and Ant on the Taipan is half way to the finish line. Can I get a gust and catch him? No, the winds too light and the tide takes the pressure out of my sails.
After 5 hours, 1 minute, 14 seconds of sailing Ant Richards on a Taipan 4.9 cat rig is the overall yardstick winner and I finish 43 seconds behind him, for second place overall on Yardstick. So close but yet so far! Then about a minute behind is Pete Kiely on the next Mosquito cat rig with spinnaker for third place, and Matt Stone on Mosquito cat rig with spinnaker another minute back for fourth.
It was a fitting finish for the three Cat Rig rigged Mosquito's with spinnaker; they had sailed the whole race no more than a few minutes apart and finished the same. What an epic race! I was drained, exhausted in every way. It certainly was a "challenge": would I do it again? You bet.