Craigower Race Log 09

26/5/09 – Course – Camels Head, Rubble, Cremyll, W Mud, Ferry. Good race in strong wind, beat Mark across the line but came last on handicap.

02/6/09 – no entry in log

09/6/09 – no entry in log

16/6/09 – Ladies helm Louise helmed and we came last – again.

23/6/09 – no entry in log

30/6/09 – Course – Rubble, W Mud, Ferry (2). Very slow to W Mud, spotted that the bigger boats were stuck so went further up river and passed them. Came in second after Mark who managed to find some wind.

07/7/09 – Course – Torpoint, Cremyll, Ferry, Rubble, Torpoint. Strong wind so reefed down after leaving mooring and did not make a very good job of it. First across the starting line and held our own for most of the race. Made a mess of trying to get around ferry but made it on our third attempt. After our handicap was taken into account we finished only minutes behind Peter and Ralph and we beat Mark.

14/7/09 – Went out to boat but decided not to race as the wind was picking up quite strong. Found we could not row back against the tide and wind so landed on the Ferry slipway. Dave went to get the trolley and Mark and Bill kindly gave him a hand.

21/7/09 – Course – W Mud, Camels Head. Strong wind so we reefed down mainsail. On the way up from W Mud to Camels Head we winged out the foresail on the pole and overtook Peter and Ralph so we went around the buoy first. I tried taking out the reef but let the foresail down by mistake – calamity. Peter and Ralph overtook us and Mark caught up. Shortened course and we came 30secs from being first after Mark.

28/7/09 – Course – W Mud, Cremyll, Ferry, W Mud, Ferry. Quite strong winds with an incoming tide. Went OK but had a hard time getting across the finish line but finished second after Peter in Tic Tack, but we beat Mark.

04/8/09 – Course – Torpoint, W Mud, Rubble, Torpoint, Ferry Dave was in Aberdeen visiting his daughter so I went across to race by myself. Roger Tolouse turned up to race with Peter but as he already had a crew agreed to race with me. We led the pack throughout the race but on our way up to ferry the tide was very strong going out and the wind had dropped so slow progress. The course was shortened so we went across the line first on the way up to ferry. Mark was just behind us so won on handicap, Ralph was third and Peter who seemed to get stuck in mid river was fourth.

11/8/09 – no log entry

18/8/09 – Course – W Mud, Cremyll, Ferry, W Mud, Rubble, Ferry. Started well in moderate winds, we beat Peter and Mark around the first but Ralph was well out in front. After rounding Cremyll, Mark, Peter and ourselves came to a ‘hole’ in the wind and we could not make headway into the outgoing tide (Ralph seemed to have missed the hole as he always seems to). Eventually Mark found some wind and pulled away as did Peter but we just get our sails set right so raised our cruising chute. With that and the foresail poled out we gradually started to gain on the others but came last with Ralph the clear winner. But we had enjoyed the sail.