What goes around – Enterprise Report 2012-09-05
What a beautiful evening for a sail and with a balanced karma for some of the Enterprise fleet.
Wind was forecast North Easterly but had swung to a Southerly by the sevon knots of sea breeze. It was actually that warm for once.
Nikki Buckler was our race officer for the evening and set a top course of South Winter, Inflatable Stick buoy, North East Winter, Liberty Yachts.
We suffered a bit of paralex error and thought that it was a figure of eight around the windward mark. We were politely invited by an interested party in a safety boat to stop asking questions and sail the course. Quite right too.
Dave Mitchell was guest helm with Peter in Dyskinetic who put the cat amoungst the pigeons by sailing up the very pin biased line on starboard whilst nearly everyone else approached the start on port. On Egg & Spoon we were lucky to wiggle through for a decent start. Makes a change.
The wind was very fluffy again tonight and had lots of pockets of lighter backed wind. Boats 15 metres away would be sailing 20 degrees higher and not much you could do about it. Just suck it up and keep calm.
After rounding South Winter we were on the beat proper and Dyskinetic was rocket like, passing Egg & Spoon to windward. After tacking behind the Spoon got some legs and retook a narrow lead on a port tack leg to the windward mark. Those boats who stood on picked up a lovely lift coming into the mark so all 4 boats were closely bunched.
In first it was Egg & Spoon followed by Dyskinetic, Different Shade and No Handles.
With the flood tide the light wind was even more feeble and we ghosted slowly back into North East Winter at a leisurely pace. Dyskinetic and Different Shade blanketed Egg & Spoon and were soon closing us down. Whilst breezing past Dyskinetic’s boom caught the Spoon’s shroud and incurring a penalty 720. After the turns Dyskinetic was a long way back in 4th place. Ouch. After squeezing every inch of progress around the course it was a big hit for a small touch.
Down the reach to Liberty yachts and back to South Winter the lead didn’t change much. On starboard tack Egg & Spoon was a bit to windward and held a lift over Different Shade who was sailing to leeward. Alan kept plugging away and took speed over heading, gained some separation and got into more pressure and a header to tack on. Bold and audacious or move of last resort, who knows but it paid off and Alan got back in front of the Spoon at the windward mark.
Karma clock had been ticking away by now and after getting 2 turns from Dyskinetic Egg & Spoon got sucked into Different Shade, touched their jib with the boom and we earnt our own 720 penalty. You could almost hear the cheer go up from Dave and Peter that balance had been restored.
Martin and Nick had been towards the back of the fleet at the start but had been plugging their way their way though the rotating competition and were close behind Egg & Spoon after the penalty turns. The Spoon arrested a backward slide and held onto 2nd behind Alan and Pete in Different.
Shoreside it was chicken curry or deluxe sausage and chips. Other big news there’s a NEW mystery Enterprise
on the dinghy park. It looks blue and, according to Peter Hinkley who owns a blue Ent, is therefore very fast. Can’t wait to see how true that is.
