Andrew Campbell

Wet, Windy and Wavy Day One in Hyeres

April 20th, 2008 in Regattas.

With the sun shining in my eyes this morning I thought that I was dreaming of sunny, warm and moderate conditions. The sky had managed to stay clear of clouds for a full 24 hours. And yet, by the time we started our first race at about 11:45 darkness had reasserted itself and foreboding rain clouds swept across the sailing area. The wind picked up from a delightful 15 knots to an overpowering 18-20. The swell began to generate under a short difficult chop. By the time we started our first race… we were reminded of the fact that we were still in Europe and it was still early spring. 

I was in the third fleet of three to start on the Laser course. Several general recalls and black flag starts made for a large number of disappointed sailors as they checked the results pages later after arriving on shore. Oddly and unexpectedly, the race committee decided to send all three fleets on the outer loop of the trapezoid racecourse making mark roundings explosive. I was lucky enough to have a young Italian sailor turn over just in front of me at the first leeward mark of my race. Because I was sailing down a big wave at the time I was forced to try and duck down the extra boatlength to clear his sail at a very high rate of speed and consequently capsized. So there I was, turtled three boatlengths to leeward of the leeward mark contemplating whether it was even worth yelling at the other guy, also capsized for being only slightly more of an idiot that I had been. I was not able to get back in touch with the top ten guys whom I had sailed the first three legs and ended up with my first tough score of the day.

The second start went off in similar fashion and I was not entirely unhappy with my upwind speed against the good guys in the fleet, but I still was nowhere near the front row by the time we made it to the top mark. The conditions were such that the fleet generally sailed off the line on starboard, went for 4 or 5 minutes and then all tacked together hiking like heck for the next 4 or 5 minutes until they got to the top mark. So little brain power gets used on the Laser racecourse it is incredible. I managed to tack a couple more times than the rest of the fleet, say maybe 4 times, and made a couple of decent gains back into the top 12 by the first top mark. After a reach and another beat, I found myself going down the run in decent shape but nothing stellar. When gybing half-way down the run my mainsheet somehow got pinched between the outer block on the boom and the eye that attaches it to the boom. I was sailing down 3- and 4-foot waves in 18 knots with puffs well into the mid 20s with my sail essentially cleated in a severely overtrimmed position. In my violent attempts to get the sheet unstuck the jury boat came zooming up apparently thinking I was attempting to cheat somehow in these monstrous conditions and even went to so far as to question me after the race about the circumstances of my troubles. Realizing that I probably wouldn’t safely get to the gate without fixing the problem I spun up into the wind quickly and undid the pinch losing two boats and a lot of distance by the time I could get back down to the run.

It was a frustrating day today. And in reality could not have gone any worse considering I finished both races, wasn’t over the line and didn’t break anything. While we were getting put away on shore one of my buddies commented: “You think you had it rough, check those guys out,” and pointed to two 49ers under tow entering the harbor. One of the boats had no mast to speak of, both sailors just squatting on the deck of an empty skiff, and the other had a rat’s nest of torn mainsail and shredded spinnaker wrapped more times than you could count around their forestay. All things considered it wasn’t too bad a day, but most things considered I have massive room for improvement. More to come from Hyeres tomorrow. Results at: http://sof.ffvoile.net/results/laser.htm

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