Following cancellation of the Lyme Regis passage race, a good call considering the SW gale that blew through, the weekend for the third and final passage race of the season came round for the weekend of 30th August. The westerly blow that had been with us all week, the remnants of hurricane Cristobal, was forecast to diminish and by Sunday summer was meant to return! So we signed up. A slight change of destination from Poole to Swanage, to account for the tides, meant (hopefully) a shorter race. 8:30am on Saturday saw Arcsine, Crystella, and Nutcracker - Samphire also joined just after the start - cruising the club line for a dead westerly downwind start monitored by Steve Dadd in his van on the pier – apparently we were all over the line! We all went in different directions and lost sight of each other surprisingly quickly. Our tactics were essentially zig zag gybing to keep the genoa filled because the sea was too rolly to qoosewing on the dead downwind course. I should have taken the example from Arcsine and goosewinged with a poled out genoea – but our Commodore was too far ahead for me to see what she was doing! Bright sunshine cheered us all as we careered downwind under full white sail. We elected, with a little trepidation given the state of the sea, to take the inner passage at St Aldhelm’s head, as did Arcsine. Ray and Lynn in Crystella opted to go round the outside – further but stronger tides. All went well except the seas and wind continued to build, gusts of 25 knots now and large following seas slewing the boat round, a near broach forced a stifled scream from my dearly beloved – time to reef the main. We shot through off St Aldhelms head in the narrow stretch of still water eyeing the maelstrom occurring further out with interest. Rounding the finishing mark, Peveril ledges buoy, I had to go wide to avoid a clutch of divers – claiming I lost a couple of minutes in the process. Then it was the calm of Swanage Bay, the sailing club moorings, cup of tea and a well earned big slice of Simon’s homemade cake. We were last to arrive, I consoled myself that since Samphire had retired (apparently the crew mutinied preferring to go to the airshow at Bournemouth!) we should at least get an honourable third. But no we came second, after Arcsine of course; the inner passage had clearly worked in our favour. We did it in 3 hours 44 mins and surprisingly all the boats were within 15 minutes of each other, a very enjoyable race. But the fun had barely started! After a walk ashore and some fish and chips we were joined by Steve Dadd and all took taxis to the Square and Compass at Worth Maltravers to see a band which Steve knew about. The Roving Crows – absolutely fantastic – check out www.rovingcrows.com. It was a knockout to see such a quality band, including trumpeter and fiddler, in the tiny front room of the pub. Sunday dawned bright and clear with a continuing light westerly. We had a lovely sail over to Bournemouth anchoring off the beach with the rest of the armada, to watch the airshow, arriving just in time to catch the Red Arrows - spectacular. Leaving late afternoon to catch the tide we again encountered quite strong winds, this time over tide unfortunately meaning nasty seas off Durlston Head and St Aldhelm. Not being a purist -up went the sprayhood and on went the engine. We arrived back late, tired, but all feeling like we had crammed about a week’s worth of activities into a couple of days.
David Lees, Nutcracker
