It’s been a while since my last post so this post will have a bit of everything from the past week and I’ll give a disclaimer right now that it might be on the longer side. There’s the exciting conclusion of the pre-worlds, the first 3 days of races from the worlds, the serving of justice, burningness becomes happiness, awesome wave surfing, more Papa comments, and all this from the stunning beach cabana view on the Island of Ko Samet. Breeze is on… let’s go!The pre-worlds (officially called International Week) seems like eons ago now, but it was just last Friday that the pre-worlds warm-up regatta concluded. Throughout the week the wind slowly increased and the wave patterns became more steady and predictable as the wind also held more steady in direction throughout each day. Having had no idea of how competitive the racing in the Fireball fleet would be and how competitive we would be (new boat, new crew etc) it was easy to race the regatta with no expectations other than to push ourselves to sail our best and have fun. I can confidently say that we did both. Some highlights included having consistently excellent starts to each race, and steadily increasing our boat speed and technical skills and Michael and I familiarized ourselves with the Turtle more and more. We finished roughly mid-fleet when all was said and done. Tomas Musil from the Czech Republic took the regatta honors, with British and Aussies rounding out the top 5. (Click here for results).
The big regatta started on Sunday. As you have probably read from other posts, the intensity was noticeably increased. The wind was also noticeably stronger and the waves that last week were very choppy began to have a slightly more rolling feeling to them. The increased wind, rounder waves and more consistent wind and wave conditions made the waves easier to sail in my opinion. However, the waves continued to be quite short even though they were quite high at times. The shortness of wavelength and the steepness of the crests was certainly a challenge for us all. Lots of bemused stories could be heard around the boat park coming from gleefully smiling faces at the end of each day. We were all having a blast in the surf! Some of them were so memorable that I actually have a favourite wave that I remember. It took place on the second downwind of the first race of the second day of the worlds (race 3). Michael and I were sailing nearly straight downwind on port tack, the spinnaker far out to the left of the boat, what is known as “sailing by the lee”. The direction of the waves and the steady wind and big waves made for just perfect conditions for this and we were consistently passing boats downwind as a result. We go on one big wave and just rode it, snaking up and down the wave while all three sails were hanging limp with no pressure on them as the wave was giving us all of our forward momentum. It was amazing! Michael let out a “woooohooooooo!” and it was shortly thereafter that he said to me “It’s a good thing I trust your driving because I don’t think I’ve ever sailed on waves with someone like this before.”
Sail our best and have fun!
We had our mishaps too. This being the strongest wind we’ve yet sailed the Turtle in, there are small adjustments to the rigging we’ve been needing to make because things just haven’t been tested on a wide enough wind range. On Sunday our strut (a stabilizing bar that gives strength to the lower part of the mast and helps the sail keep its optimum shape) let go not once, but twice. We found we didn’t have quite the proper length or the most appropriate knot to hold it properly in place. We also had some length issues on other controls like the boom vang (used extensively to control the shape mast and the leach – or back edge – of the sail) being set with too little range of movement, meaning we couldn’t tighten the leach of our sail properly as the breeze picked up. These things cost us some speed and some places as a result, but again, we’re both happy we’be been learning lots and getting going fast with each race! On the Monday we also had a series of unfortunate events.
The start of the first race on Monday involved a heated exchange between us and a British boat. The Brits were trying to use intimidation tactics, yelling at us rather rudely with words that need not be repeated, essentially trying to head us into the wind and get us out of their way on the start line. However, just because we have an older boat and we’re not in the top 10 doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of beginners and I, for one, really don’t feel like being wrongly taken advantage of. Thus, we stood our ground and I told the British boat they had no rights to force us up into the wind. 30 seconds of shouting later, after repeated exchanges back and forth, they British accelerated forward and hit the back of our rudder with the front of their boat. It was all quite the opposite of amicable, and we yelled at them to do a 720 (penalty turns as provided by the rules – sailing 2 circles) and we yelled protest. They basically ignored us so we were faced with the unhappy feeling of either allowing them to sail like jerks on the course and abuse the rules, or filing a protest; the latter most certainly meaning we would be facing a grumpy British team in a room full of judges after the race for several hours instead of relaxing. Protests are never fun and I generally try to avoid them. But these guys just left a sour taste in our mouth from what should be a fun regatta. After careful consideration, we decided to go through with the protest.
The protest itself was not much fun to be involved with. The panel of five judges were very respectful and nice to talk to, but our British counterparts were noticeably perturbed and angry, saying comments under their breath and within earshot of us before and after the hearing that were clearly condescending and unfriendly. The findings of the jury were that Michael and I were in the right, and therefore, the British boat was disqualified from race 3. It’s not really a way to make friends, but I also don’t think blatantly abusing the rules is a friendly thing to do. So, we did our civic duty and helped withhold the rule of law in our self-policing sport. Another experience to write about!
We have not been able to determine conclusively if the following was a delayed result of the British hitting our rudder before race 3, but during race 4 the line that holds our rudder down and in place for racing failed. We were screaming across on a Starboard tack reach in what has been the windiest race of the series so far. One of the less pleasant things of sailing here is the amount of garbage in the water. We’ve had to be extremely vigilant for floating debris ranging from plastic bags and pop bottles to logs and bamboo poles. At this particular moment, we were navigating through a veritable mine field of garbage on the edge of control when we hit something. It’s hard to say what, but it seemed like a bunch of floating rope or something similar. The added force on our rudder however, caused the line to break. There we were, racing along already having to work hard to keep the boat upright, and then we suddenly had no steering! We immediately doused our spinnaker (took it down) and I went to the stern (the back) to try and effect some repairs. I tightened up the pivot bolt on the rudder as much as I could to try and keep it down and we kept racing. However, we ended up having to stop on a regular basis to push the rudder down again by hand and try and tighten the bolt. Needless to say, it wasn’t our fastest race. Then, to clinch the misfortunes, we capsized on the final downwind leg of race 4 when we were once again trying to push the rudder back down. What can we say? C’est la vie and move on to the next race.
Yesterday’s races felt like our best races yet. The breeze was once again stronger than the previous week, though not quite as strong as Monday. The wind was averaging around 13-15 knots. It really feels like we’re starting to pull together more solid races from start to finish. Race 6 was shaping up to be our best finish yet, as we were in the top 20 boats and the top Canadians for most of the race. I’m gonna put this one in the category of “finding a way to lose” as on the final downwind we found a way to capsize in the rolling waves, costing us around 15 places. But we still came up to the club at the end of the day with big smiles on our faces from a day of great racing and really feeling like we’re getting the boat going fast.
Also, we finally have a sailing shot on the water, thanks to the local club member Gilbert.
Burningness becomes happiness. It’s just a little tidbit, but Papa (our dear friend Gregg) began calling the hot chilli condiments ‘happiness’ – “Can you pass me some of the happiness please” he would say as he loaded up his Thai dish with more spice. To that end, we’ve all become a little more accustomed to the spiciness of the Thai food and we’re all loading up a little more on the chilis.
And now, for those who have been waiting, I’ll speak to the nickname of Papa. I was thinking Maddy would write something about this (and so this is where I’m publicly calling Maddy out for not writing a little more) but here goes. It was on one of our first days in Pattaya. Gregg was staying at the yacht club as it was his responsibility to coordinate the crane and unloading of the containers arriving for teams from around the world. Maddy, Michael and I were taking a taxi into the city. We happened to get a taxi driver who we had already had the day before. We were all three of us in the taxi, but the driver was not moving. He was expecting Gregg to come as well. After a few seconds he turned to us and says “Papa no come?” As we struggled to contain our laughter, we said, “No, no. Papa no come!”
That was the first time. We all felt it was enough to make it official, so we have been (lovingly of course) been joking with Gregg occasionally by calling him Papa. However, the name seems like it should stick. Not only has Gregg served as an excellent guide taking care of us and leading us to fantastic, little-known travel spots like the beach we’re sitting on today as I type this, but the locals all look to him immediately when we are in a group. Today is once again a lay day with no racing. We headed down the coast to the island of Ko Samet to experience a different side of Thailand and to get away for the day. This morning we arrived on the island and found our beach cabanas of choice for the night (we’ll be heading back to Pattaya tomorrow morning to continue racing). We all sat down to arrange some breakfast and the resort attendant came wanting to arrange the paperwork for our cabins. She immediately turned to Gregg and asked if ‘Papa’ could fill in the sheet for all of us. No more needs to be said (and I think Gregg would rather that not a lot more is said – heh).
A cheerful hello from Ko Samet in southeast Thailand! Tomorrow, back to racing!
