Yet another weekend was well spent in race training and racing in Hamble Winter Series 2010 with Sailing Logic and London Corinthian Sailing Club. Team Lion has clawed their way up to the 6th position on the overall leaderboard, climbing one place up since last Sunday’s first races. Wind was very light, which meant springy steps, cunning tactics, frantic maneuvering and also frustration in wind shifts. We came 5th on the first race and 7th on the second. Fellow sailing club racers on Panther are breathing down our necks from 7th position. Liquid Vortex team is back after an incident with their boat the previous weekend, and now they took two 4th positions, stepping directly to 9th place in charts.
This weekend we had a full crew on board: Tom on the main sheet; Charlotte, Amy, Niamh and Elaine on the trimming team; Sally on pit; Stefan at the mast; Mel and Riikka in the bow team. Our mate Nick participates now more in tactics with skipper Peter, who helms whilst keeping the team in check and alert.
Full crew means less space on the rail and therefore we now line up one seat forward. My new position on rail is slightly forward the mast, which makes tacking very interesting, as I will now dive under the jib instead of stepping through the kicker (vang). Fortunately spinnaker pole gives some shelter from the swinging clew. It is in fact possible to tack safely crawling under the spinnaker pole in hybrid movement of a crab, caterpillar and flatfish, or better yet, to just lie flat when the jib tacks over, then get up and skirt the sail. This saves a few seconds as I’ll be already there when help is needed without rocking the boat unnecessarily. Knee pads are on my shopping list for the next race, and meanwhile I’ll try to get the swollen knee sorted with a lot of ice and rest. Deck and knees do not like each other!
Next weekend, a new race. Team Lion is waking up – hear us ROAWWWRRR!
