………has been seriously lacking!

We moved from the Cruiser Division into Performance Cruiser 4 - only to find a majority of the others in this fleet not only have composite race sails and usually crews of 8 or more, but are also masthead rigged and therefore able to sail much higher angles than we can.

It’s meant, despite the smaller size of our spinnaker, we’ve had to take places off wind and invariable loose places upwind – and our end results have not been good.

The crew teamwork has been exceptional and considering we’ve such a small number (6) and have to furl our headsail even before we can hoist our spinnakers, we’ve lost very little ground at each mark rounding and most of our manouveres have gone like clockwork.  It’s great.

Our partying has been equally seriously good.

We are moored right off the small but popular Galley Bar in Nelsons Dockyard, English Harbour, so it’s hard not to slip into party mode once the boats been cleaned up after each race.

Sunday saw us race from a start off Falmouth Harbour to a finish off the capital St Johns, and then anchored off for a beach party at Port James.  We came 8^th out of our 19 yacht fleet.  Alex in his inimitable style picked up a nice Canadian couple who’d never sailed before, and we co-opted them for the following race back.

Monday saw our return race where we also trialled the blade headsail to see if we could match height on what was to be a predominantly upwind course.  We got the height we wanted, and having the extra weight on the rail also helped, but once clear of the island and butting into the bigger waves on the south side, lacked the power to do well.  Frustrating.  After applying our handicap (high compared with others) we came in 15^th – so communally buried our sorrows at the Galley Bar.

Tuesday saw us back to 6 crew, again off the south coast, and we reverted to the genoa resolving the sail lower and faster.  Upwind, we did better and downwind we blistered.  But we equally did not plot an inshore mark the race committee had set to stop people sailing too close inshore – and once we realised our error once rock hopping – radioed in our retirement.  It’s all pretty relaxed out here – they even bagan to argue I did not need to retire!  But it was the right thing to do.

More sorrows drowned that night at the Crew Ball in Falmouth Harbour.  Seriously late night with Rob plus some guys he’d picked up still partying in cockpit the following morning – good job Wednesday was a lay day.

So - so far its one 8^th, one 15^th, and with our retirement and no discards, one 19^th.  Sad racing.

But is equally been top results in four parties – with so far only Izzie and I spending any time chatting into the porcelain telephone.  Overall, a good time had by all.

Today’s race is mainly off wind from here to Jolly Harbour where we stay the night.

If we don’t do better – we might just have to party again.  Bit thinking about it, if we do well - we might just do the sameJ.

Take care

Izzie, Louise, Sue, Alex, Robert and John.  xx

ireupwind