It seems like a very long time but was only the 18th of March when we competed in our last race before COVID restriction regulations hit. In the mean G-whizz has not been idle, fortunately for us in Sydney, within all of the permitted activities that allowed people to leave their accommodation, there was sailing and fishing. The equipment list on G-whizz now includes a couple of fishing rods and a tackle box courtesy of Ann’s father and in our wallets are freshly minted fishing licenses.
The rules dictated that two co-inhabitating people (or family) could take exercise in the form of sailing but were not permitted to anchor, however fishing was also a permitted activity. Problem solved; sail during the day then anchor and fish at night, the only casualty to all of this was a substantial leather jacket (a beautifully coloured fish by the way) that Ann caught with a prawn head for bait, hopefully he survived the ordeal and is a bit more selective when he next snacks on prawn components.
Back to the racing, two weeks ago on the 14th of June we competed in tbe first of the West Harbour Winter Series since lock down rules were relaxed, it was great to have friends back on board and sail on what was a beautiful day on the water, while we missed the start by about 90 seconds, well we are out of practice, unfortunately our competitors were in practice, after racing without a spinnaker we finished 5th across the line about 30 seconds from third, we were a bit slower than our handicap though where we finished 7th on PHS.
The forecast was not great for today’s race, over the last few days it changed from sunny and no wind to rain and 10 to 15 knots, although it also depended on which forecast program you looked at, it turned out to be a pretty good day, the rain held off and the wind varied between almost nothing to 15 knots, although most of the time it was in the area of 4 to 8 knots.
The race started in very light air, incredibly the entire fleet hit the line at almost the same time and were spread of over the entire length of the start line, and that’s pretty much the way it stayed for most of the fleet for the entire race, KoKo the Elan 37 just got further a head as the race progressed, somehow Guwara a Hanse 350 also made a break, we were either smart enough or lucky enough to pick the wind off Birchgrove and were a able to put some distance on the rest of the fleet.
KoKo just got further ahead but we were running down Guwara, if the course had been 100 meters longer we may have beaten them into second place as it was they beat us into second place by 7 seconds. Third on scratch and fifth on PHS, not a bad day out.
Most people that know me know that I am not a fan of racing (or indeed sailing of any sort) under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, there are a number of reasons for this attitude including:
1 – The fickle winds that bend, test, gust and die for no apparent reason, affected by all the tall buildings on either side of the harbour and the funneling effect of the narrow channel at that point and probably others reasons that I don’t know or understand.
2- The washing machine conditions; it is almost is almost as if every bit of wash that bounces up and down the harbour meets under the bridge, bouncing off the deep and vertical walls that have been placed there and “improved’ on since colonisation of the area.
3- Circular Quay is the epicenter of Ferry activity on the harbour (Circular Quay is “Central Station” for Ferrys) and for those that don’t know a local rule gives Sydney Ferrys absolute right of way, and don’t some of the captains like to enforce it. – Have a look at all the ferry routes on the map below. Time for a caveat here the majority of Sydney Ferry Captains are the most considerate navigators on the harbour.
4 – It just gets busy with boats of all sorts, from International Cruise Liners to little tinnies controlled by masters with equivalent variation of ability.
Then I look up and around, get my mind out of sailing mode and look at the scenery, and realise just how lucky are we to sail in this area. All this comment was generated when I came across a little video on You Tube that was uploaded a few months ago, it motivated me to pen the following an place it on the Video page of the site.
The West Harbour Winter Series race 4 (17-Jun-18) was held in pretty gusty conditions, the course started and finished in the vicinity of Cockatoo Island proceeded down the Harbour around Fort Denison and return to Cockatoo Island with a little detour around Goat Island. we did not do too well on scratch (5th) but were lucky enough to get a first on handicap.
There is a pretty popular web cam on Sydney harbour (https://webcamsydney.com/) and the operators were good enough to record the period when the Western Harbour Winter Series fleet went under the Bridge and then returned, They then sped up the video and up loaded to You tube. We are in the third group of yachts heading towards Fort Denison, the only boat in that group with a black main and light coloured genoa. Its worth a look and reminds me of how privileged we are to have such a special sailing area.
This post is a little late coming, in fact it probably would not have been written at all if it were not for some personal reflection on my sailing exploits over the last few weeks. I have been accused on a number of occasions that I tend to over analyse things a bit. In my defence I would say that while the criticism is probably correct I have always wanted to know why things went wrong, and just as importantly why things went right. In the past two weeks a few, three things in particular have gone wrong. These errors were in the basics, which is probably why we forget to maintain the disciplines.
Look Up
When working with halyards it is important to look up to ensure that are running free of any interruption. On G-whizz we have one spinnaker halyard that exits the mast at the head, two headsail halyards that exit the mast just above the forestay (G-whizz is a 7/8 fractional rig) and just below the forestay the spinnaker pole topping lift exits the mast. It is a bit busy in that part of the mast but the relative positions of each line can be ascertained with a judicial and concentrated look up.
Western Harbour Winter Series Race 1 2017. Photo Phil Hare.
We had to retire from the first Western Harbour Winter Series race when we were unable to drop the spinnaker. Phil Hare, GFS’s Sailing secretary sent me the accompanying photo of G-whizz passing Julian Todd’s Young 88 and DJ Holster’s Etchells (Just why these two boats are not flying spinnakers is uncertain). What got me thinking a bit more about this whole subject is that our assymertical spinnaker, a mast head spinnakter is flying from the hounds! Any wonder we had trouble getting the expected power out of it. We were unable to drop it at the leeward mark as the halyards were twisted with each other and the forestay. Necessitating a trip to the top of the mast by yours truly. It may not be the smartest to send the heaviest crew member (me) to the top, but I thought that if anything needed cutting up there it would probably be better if it was the owner making the decisions. It also provided some entertainment for the tourists enjoying a balmy Saturday afternoon at Berry’s Island reserve.
On reflection this incident started when I changed the headsail and furler rig from a racing configuration to the normal cruising set up after the Sail Port Stephens Regatta. The racing setup is achieved by removing the Selden foil feeder fitting and dropping the upper furling drum to below the bolt rope feed position enabling headsails to be changed on the fly, great for racing but not a necessity for cruising. I then raised and furled the Roller Furling Genoa for the trip back to Sydney. A process that I did by myself and completely screwed up. I DID NOT LOOK UP, and captured the Headsail Halyard between the headsail halyard and the forestay. This error was not corrected when the RFG was dropped and the racing #1 raised for the first Western Harbour Winter Series race. Again I think it was me that set all this up before leaving the mooring on the morning of the race. The error was compounded when the crew member who volunteered to be foredeckie for the day probably put another wrap of the halyard around the forestay while preparing for the spinnaker hoist. I am not going to be critical here as it was the first time that he had been foreword of the mast on G-whizz and probably the first time that he had rigged an asymmetrical spinnaker, and if he did look up was probably unsure as to what he was meant to be seeing, again my fault as I did not brief him well enough. This is not a criticism of anyone just an observation of the thing we can easily overlook.
Look out
In the same race we bent a mid ship’s life-line stanchion, what we are pretty sure happened, and the crew remember the “Twang” as the sheet flicked off the stanchion after afflicting quite a bend, is that the headsail trimmer did not notice that the headsail sheet had got caught on the stanchion and kept winching, looking at the winch and not the sheet or the headsail. The result was one quite bent stanchion. The moral of this one is to not concentrate our vision on what we are doing, but also be very aware of what we are affecting.
We may be grinding a winch but we are also moving quite a length of sheet and altering the shape of the headsail. Most of the operations we do on our sailing boats have “Down stream” repucussions, in fact why else would we be doing then? There are a few that come to mind that can have immiediate effect on the safety of the crew or the boat itself, these include:
Where people are working on the boom, flaking the mainsail, adjusting the sail cover/bag or lazy jacks, it is imperative that the person who may be tidying the mainsheet and adjusting the traveller is also looking out for their team mates potentially hanging from the boom. There are many examples of this and they can have results ranging from the embarrassing to the expensive, Having your nose buried in an electronic navigation devise and not looking out at your environment can have very expensive consequences.
Having your nose buried in an electronic navigation devise and not looking out at your environment can have very expensive consequences.
There are innumerable other examples.
We have all got transfixed on the job we are doing at the expense of our awareness of what the down stream effects are, it is simple but easily forgotten. Again I am not critical of anyone but who can we honestly say that this is something they have not been guilty of?
Loosen up
Over the past few weeks I have been crewing on Michael Grove’s Jeanneau 379, “Agrovation” (Could this be the fastest 379 around? I’m sure Michael is sailing this thing way faster than its design parameters). Last week in light air Michael was getting frustrated that he could not get the boat up to speed, I was on the main and could sense his frustration.
Later on talking about the race and thinking about what we did, it was obvious that we had the boat tightened down too much. I had completely forgotten a rule drummed into me by some great sailors when I was learning – “When in doubt, Let it out”.
The crew on Agrovation that day were all very experienced sailors, most of them very accomplished dinghy (me excluded) sailors. We all forgot, keep it loose in the light!
When thinking about this it brought a few other recollections, I have experienced on many boats, trimmers that after they trim a sail they tighten it a bit more, almost as if there is something that says, well if we are going this fast with the sail pretty tight, we must go faster if it is a bit tighter. There will be many that don’t believe this, but keep a lookout and I’ll bet you’ll see it for your self at some stage.
Along the same lines, when we first took delivery of G-whizz, Rod Parry, the previous owner gave us the sage advise, sail her loose! Advise that some how found its way to the bottom of the filing cabinet we call our memory. Highlighted halfway through the twilight series last summer sailing season. We went from getting results in the bottom half of the fleet to achieving results near the top, the only difference was that we had a greater mix of females on the crew, without being sexist they lacked the testosterone of the opposite sex and were unable to get that final bit out of the winch. I probably state the obvious here, morevthan likely they used their brains and knew not to put that final bit into the winch. The looser halyards and regularly the looser sheeting gave us considerably more speed in the inevitable light twilight conditions.
Look up, look out and loosen up, the basics that we tend to forget when we try to overthink things.
