SAME again? It is the lobby of the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth, and Fairplay's editor spies a couple of arriving crews, checking in before heading off for the pre-race reception. But their greeting has nothing to do with the adjacent bar; they were harking back to earlier Fairplay Cups and in just those two words they were raising 160 questions. That is how many people were involved in this year's eighth Fairplay Cup and each one would have a different answer to that simple question.
Some things, for some people, might be the same. Other things, for other people, will be different. The venue for the race _ Sunsail's base at Port Solent, near Portsmouth _ is certainly the same. The boats, however, are not the same; we will be using larger yachts than last year, all part of a brand new fleet of Sunfast 37s.
At 21, the number of boats taking part is the same as last year, but the combination of companies is _ as every year _ unique. That means that some of the personalities are the same while others have yet to make their mark. And there have been some acquisitions and mergers among the companies taking part so, in one boat, the name is new but some of the faces seem familiar while, in another, the name is the same but some of the faces are new. All this confusion calls for a swift drink.
Same again? We are in the Port Solent marina bar, where Fairplay's free drinks are being poured _ at least something has stayed the same _ and the crews start to assemble. Straightaway, it is clear that plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, as they say in Monaco. For here is the V.Ships crew, a new name on the roster of companies to take part in the Fairplay Cup. Yet, wearing a V.Ships jacket is Alan Armstrong, who has guided the Denholm Group's boat to victory in the past.
Now he has found a berth with the rival ship manager and has wooed Stuart Munro, of ITIC, formerly a regular Denholm guest, to join his team. Stuart need not expect any more business from his former hosts, mutters Niall Denholm, sharing the joke with Alan. But Niall himself has seen some changes since last year, as the group's ship management company was sold to Anglo Eastern. So, although the familiar Denholm Group name appears on the entry list, Anglo Eastern head Peter Cremers _ more used to the warm waters off Hong Kong _ is here for the first time as its guest.
Lloyd's Register is also here for the first time, providing competition for its rival class society and previous cup winner, DNV. There had been speculation last year _ when no societies took a boat _ that an IACS team could be mustered for this event one year. If so, Fairplay will organise a sweepstake over which society takes the helm. Of course, since last year's event, Lloyd's Register and Fairplay have established a joint venture company, but any suggestion that the LR boat should be viewed as a third Fairplay entry gets short shrift.
Clifford Chance is here for the first time, and has immediately hit the right tone with its specially-made Fairplay Cup 2002 T-shirts. It shows what powers of persuasion this law firm must have; it obtained its eight shirts from a company whose minimum order is normally 500. It takes more influence than that, however, to lift the cup and perhaps its crew members have influence in the right places, at least if they have an accident during the race, since their skipper is Michael Vlasto, who is director of operations for the UK's Royal National Lifeboat Institution. "The last thing I need is to be rescued by my own lifeboat," he told his crew.
Cathelco makes up a quartet of newcomers, and all but one of its crew members were novices who have come "not to win but to enjoy taking part." And that is the point of the Fairplay Cup: it caters for all levels of skill and experience and has room for companies that want to build a team spirit among their staff and for others that invite guests so as to compile a race-winning crew.
Same again?
A couple of crews have returned after a year out for more of the same. DNV,
for example, has made a welcome return, but with a completely new crew from
the one that won the cup in 1999; they have "a lot to live up to," admitted
a DNV manager.
Sperry Marine last competed in 2000, as Litton, and there was some unfinished business between it and its rival, Leica. A keg of Guinness had been wagered on last year's race and, since Litton/Sperry had not turned up ("there was a three-line whip to attend a sales conference at head office" claims Sperry sales manager Clive Burnell-Jones), Leica had demanded that it should be delivered at last autumn's Europort exhibition. It was not, and Leica's crew seemed unimpressed with the offer of a few beers instead. Whether or not that was the reason for Leica's jeers and cat calls when Sperry's crew arrived at the pre-race reception is not clear, but Sperry's response was immediate: "Daggers were drawn from then on," its log of the day says.
Harwich Haven and Trinity House are also rivals, renewing their battle with the same instructions as last year: "if we don't come home ahead, we don't go home," both crews said. Last year, Trinity House finished eight places ahead of Harwich Haven, reinforcing the rivalry this year. Will it be the same again this year? "There are some scores to settle," confided a Trinity House crewmember over breakfast on the day of the races.
Experience is useful and Totem Plus set out to improve on its previous positions by arriving a day early and taking its boat for a shakedown sail. It was a useful exercise, if only because it revealed that the boat had a dirty hull, which they were counselled against scrubbing for fear of damaging the anti-fouling. But the anti-fouling can't be that great, mused one of the crew, if the hull had got dirty in the first place.
A clean boat certainly helps, as does skill and expertise, but if all else fails, bribery is worth trying. "How much is it to win?" asked one Marriott crewmember over breakfast. But since he could only offer Fairplay's editor £15, further discussion seemed pointless. It was clearly all that was left after "payment of an undisclosed consideration and an expensively tailored shirt," their log of the day notes, "to transfer the expertise of helmsman Brian Nixon of Cargill from the Baltic Exchange to the Marriott crew."
The Baltic Exchange Sailing Club had put up a good performance last year, coming in seventh and, if its crew feared that the loss of their secret weapon would be Marriott's gain, they weren't saying so beforehand. Dorchester Maritime also boasted that they had brought a secret weapon with them _ Des Howell, head of the Isle of Man's Marine Administration.
Rival manager Bluewater Marine Management is also back, fielding five of last year's prize-winning crew and hoping to go one better than its second place last year. BP Marine and Castrol have been rivals in the Fairplay Cup before, with BP beating Castrol in the final placings last time. But "our goal for this year was a top-ten finish" Castrol's log notes, and "it was agreed that this would be achieved by sailing more aggressively." Too aggressively, some might have said later. BP, on the other hand, arrived with "excellent team spirit" and "fine tactics." Could they be beaten?
Law firm Richards Butler and insurer Michael Else came back for another crack at the title _ or was it in the hope of picking up business from possible damage and disputes? Richards Butler certainly had its liability well protected by a crew drawn from three P&I clubs. Michael Else also chose its crew carefully, combining a novice and two "old sea dogs" with "at least three days' sailing in three years" in its foredeck team.
However they had planned their team and their tactics, everyone had the same ambition _ to beat last year's winner, Fairplay's Press Gang. But, apart from helmsman Martin Brooking of Lloyd's Register, MD Richard Silk was sailing with a new crew. One thing was certain, however, that Press Gang would finish ahead of Fairplay's No 2 boat, Prime Mover. Except that its crew had other ideas; "our ambition was to beat the other Fairplay boat," their log says.
Same again?
In sailing, of course, what really matters is the weather and the tides. Would
they be the same as two years ago, when a flat calm turned the race into a
drifting match against the Solent's unique tidal flows? Or the same as last
year, when a light and variable breeze made it difficult for the race officer
to lay a true starting line, giving an advantage to those boats that spotted
the error?
Neither scenario seemed likely in the days leading up to the cup, as low pressure systems lashed Britain's South coast. Even on the day of the race, there was "driving rain and rattling masts at 0500", according to Richards Butler's crew, who slept on their boat. Ashore, Trinity House's log-keeper sheeted back his curtains "and gazed in awe and wonder at Southsea seafront being assaulted by a steady Force 6+ under a grey sky. Isle of Wight obscured by mist and drizzle." Yet, by the time the bacon rolls and Danish pastries had been eaten, the forecast from race officer Tim Rogers was more encouraging: SW4-5, veering a little and backing a little during the day and eventually easing to a Force 4. In short, an excellent racing wind.
Something else that is never the same in the Solent two years running is the naming system for the race buoys. Sponsored, as many of them are, by commercial organisations, their names change from time to time. So, despite all boats being issued with a chart showing their positions, don't expect the names on the chart to correspond with those on the buoys themselves, warned Tim. And one other thing, he reminded everyone: "Try to keep it a non-contact sport."
The organisation that had chartered boats the day before had not taken this to heart and four boats were out of commission. Fortunately, Sunsail has more than enough to provide replacements but it meant that the list of sail numbers provided to boats in their ship's papers did not fully match the boats sailing round them. For some, it was only when the final placings were published in the evening that they knew for certain how their particular rivals had fared. So, armed with inaccurate charts and incomplete fleet lists, 21 crews set off for the pontoons to board their boats.
Getting a yacht ready to sail is pretty much a routine job. But some people do it in a fraction of the time that others need. There are no prizes for being first off but, if there had been, it would have gone to the Denholm Group. Last away were Richards Butler's crew but, unlike the Denholm team, they had remembered to deliver details of their next-of-kin before setting off; an omen for the Denholm boat?
Dorchester's crew was laid-back about not being one of the leaders away from base; "last away, first home," was their strategy. Except that they were not last away, so could they possibly be first home? Leica Geosystems had a reason for their delay; a Sunsail staffer wielding a hammer was `adjusting' their `ram's horn' _ a pair of hooks for reefing down the mainsail; as other boats discovered as the day wore on a few more repairs would have saved vital minutes. Clearly, although the boats are new this year, their almost constant use and this summer's heavy weather have taken their toll on some of their gear and rigging.
The prize for being the first to set off, of course, is the extra time it allows for a shakedown cruise, for crewmembers to practice their allotted tasks and for the whole team to discover their boat's idiosyncrasies. For example, V.Ships discovered that "the spinnaker bag does not float long enough to get the spinnaker down and conduct a bag overboard drill." Trinity House found much the same: "Unplanned MOB drill to recover a starboard plimsoll. Shoe lost will to live and sank to an unmarked grave before rescue could be effected," its log reads, while the Denholm Group discovered that hand-held GPS receivers don't float.
But these incidents pale against the disaster that nearly befell the Clifford Chance crew who had to "rescue the sandwich lunch from what was very nearly a watery end." Yet they did discover a sure and simple way of preventing valuables, such as spinnakers, from being lost overboard: leave them behind. "How was I to know it wasn't a sleeping bag?" protested Clifford Chance's log-taker, Julian Clark.
Lloyd's Register, with "an embarrassment of talent, some of it almost relevant" had remembered to bring their spinnaker and practised hoisting it. But that is barely half the battle; during the first race, "mention of the gybe and dispensing with the kite found our team discovering urgent tasks below," the crew's report notes. Dorchester also used the time to practise spinnaker work, wondering while they did so why both spinnaker sheets were coloured green.
Meanwhile, in the press boat, Fairplay's snappers were trying to get all the team photographs in the can before the first race started. With the fleet spread out across the Solent, it was a lengthy task, and one that was not wholly appreciated. Dorchester Maritime, for example, noted down the course when it was announced over the radio at the ten-minute gun. Plotting it onto the incorrect chart "looked as if it was going to take 15 minutes to do. Unfortunately, this was the time we were asked to pose for the Fairplay group photo; the smiles were a little forced."
Even Fairplay's Press Gang were reluctant to down tools and pose for the camera, battling, as it turned out, with a shortage of halyards. A guest from Lloyd's Register, Dan Holmes, rigged up a jury topping lift for the spinnaker pole to bring that sail into commission and it was "fortunate that Dan works in the research department as the resulting fix would definitely not have passed survey."
Same again?
Even Fairplay's editor can eventually see when he's not welcome and the press
boat manoeuvred towards the outer mark on the start line as the five-minute
and one-minute hooters sounded, just the same as last year. Unlike last year,
however, the inflatable kept a respectful distance from the mark, so as to
allow room for any early starters to turn round the end of the line without
cursing the photographers.
But that distance made it difficult to see exactly what did happen when the starting gun fired. BP Marine's Together in Trouble was adjudged to be first legally across the line, and Clifford Chance's crew reckoned that they had done well in their Salty Briefs. "If the race had only been 20 m, we'd have done very well," said one of the crew later.
No boats were called back, so that cleared the front runners out of way, leaving behind a confusion of craft that had been crowded out of contention. V.Ships' honed and toned crew were almost caught up in the crush, but suspected that some nearby skippers did not understand them "as we screamed `up, up, up!' Quite what they thought we meant we never did learn," mused V.Ships' log-taker. "We guess the two boats close to us were just having a departing kiss."
One of those boats was Sperry Marine: "As there was no protest, we carried on regardless, initially backwards, or so it seemed," the crew's log notes. Harwich Haven was somewhere in the vicinity, crossing the line "amidst a confusion of boats who had the temerity to trespass in our water, but we quickly dispatched them and set off on a course running very close in shore."
And that is where some of the fleet headed to avoid the worst of the flood tide, while most tacked out into the deeper water. It was a long tack to the first mark, giving crews time to learn more about their boats. Lloyd's Register, for example, discovered that its boat went faster on one tack than on the other. "The combined technical skill of our crew was unable to establish any cause and even implausible theories were in short supply."
Fairplay's Press Gang were making their own disappointing discoveries now that their practice is over: "we found ourselves being out-pointed by most of the boats around us," their log recalls. "Waves of depression were threatening to poop us" but some judicious tweaking partially solved the problem, but it was clear that they were not to repeat last year's winning performance. Richards Butler also faced some frustrations when, towards the end of the first race, its boat spontaneously self-tacked while "nicely heeled and about to cross the line, despite full opposite helm."
It is always difficult to judge positions during a long windward leg, and the Trinity House crew began to have doubts as they watched most of the fleet move off to the south. "Have we done the right thing?" their log notes. "Boat suddenly awash with competitive spirit." They must have done something right, as they found themselves among the leading boats at the first mark, as too did Dorchester Maritime, which had also taken the northerly course.
So had Castrol's Moules Mariners, who put in a couple of tacks to leave the shallow shoreline and finished their manoeuvre by approaching the windward mark from the east on port tack. At the same time, the leading group of boats were heading to the mark from the north, on starboard tack. Dorchester Maritime was first to reach the mark, followed by BP, and they were round before what happened next happened.
The photographs below show the unfolding story: The yachts on starboard expected Castrol, on port, to give way and held their course. "Suddenly, looming out of our port side and approaching at great speed appeared a grimly determined foe bent on making his port tack around the same bit of water at unfortunately the same time as us," records Harwich Haven's log. "We decided that life was too good to throw away so we paid off to starboard."
As viewed from the Denholm Group's boat, just a few metres behind and to windward of Harwich Haven, it appears that Harwich's jib goes aback as it crash tacks, effectively stopping Harwich, hove to and right in front of Denholm's fast-approaching bows. Despite Denholm's efforts to bear away round Harwich's stern, a collision is inevitable, and the force of it moves Harwich Haven's boat bodily sideways while a chunk of GRP flies from Denholm's bows.
So why did Denholm's helmsman not tack clear as well? Because outside of him was Trinity House, whose crew could only watch as "all hell broke loose" but whose skipper remained focused on the job in hand. "Just sail our boat," he shouted, as they bore away round the buoy and clear of the mess. Nearby, V.Ships also had to take avoiding action (`crisis management', its log calls it), "causing much running about and bits of rope going everywhere."
Meanwhile, Castrol tacked round the buoy, "judging it to perfection," its report says. "The excitement of rounding this mark was obviously too much for some of the other boats, judging by all the shouting and noises we could hear behind us." And that shouting and noise continued for the rest of the day and beyond, as rules were quoted and countered. Port gives way to starboard, argued one camp;"we were within a length of the buoy and were allowed water at the mark," explained Castrol.
The press boat took a close look at Denholm's damaged bow and its Sunsail driver radioed a damage report to the committee boat that there was no visible hole in the hull. Denholm's crew made a visual inspection inside, but a forward bulkhead prevented access to the inside surface for a full assessment so, in case the boat's structural integrity had been compromised, they decided to withdraw from the second race and "it was the end of the regatta for us," mourned one of Denholm's crew later. But they had enjoyed "a fabulous beat, in which we'd got up to third place" and if it had not been for the collision "we'd have got into first place." But he was philosophical about it all: "As Michael Schumacher says, when you're racing, there's traffic and sometimes it gets in the way."
Same again?
After the excitement at the windward mark, nothing in this race could be quite
the same again. Harwich Haven got everything facing the right way again and,
while its scribe was "hastily scribbling down the new words I had learnt",
settled down for the next leg, "but this time it was nice, as we had a few
more yachts to look at in front of us."
So, although race positions among the pack have been affected, which will be reflected in the final race positions and therefore influence the cup result itself, the immediate concern on the boats that remembered to bring them is to hoist their spinnakers. Castrol, despite their escape at the mark, lost a number of places as they fought to get their spinnaker flying and Trinity House's log-keeper, David Allen, gets an earful from his skipper as he neglects his spinnaker's care, distracted by another crewmember who is apparently sailing on the `Sloop John B' with his grandfather. "I wish I was, too," David muses.
A little more speed and he could have been hopping off onto a passing fishing boat, which chose to drag its trawl slowly across the course while the entire fleet bore down upon it. Even its following seagulls appeared to sense their perilous situation, seeming to desert their station momentarily while the pack thundered past.
By the end of the downwind leg, Dorchester and BP have established themselves as the front-runners, with BP gaining ground by taking Dorchester's wind. So Dorchester's crew has to make a crucial decision: with only five on board, when should they drop the spinnaker? They decided to haul it down before the final close reach, while BP kept it up for longer and then had difficulties controlling it, losing as much as 200 m, Dorchester estimated.
In the following pack, the Michael Else team also had difficulties at the end of their spinnaker run; a frayed luff on their genoa meant that it came out of the track on the forestay and "we lost momentum, which left our spinnaker bouncing across the water." Totem Plus and DNV, however, appear to have had successful downwind legs. Fairplay's snapper noted those two as being last to round the windward mark, yet their final placings in the first race show that both must have overhauled as many as four boats during the rest of the event.
That was not enough to get them into contention for the prizes and, as the press boat sped to the finishing line, Dorchester was the clear winner. Unfortunately, thanks to taking more pictures than was perhaps strictly necessary at the windward mark, Fairplay's cameraman got no response as he pressed the shutter to record the win, which was particularly remarkable, commented Fairplay's editor at the dinner that evening, because they came from the Isle of Man. "I thought they would put in an extra leg," he said.
BP and Trinity House arrived second and third, followed by Leica Geosystems, which had won a downwind duel with V.Ships, which came in sixth behind Lloyd's Register. Castrol crossed the line seventh, with the Baltic Exchange eighth, after a disappointing final beat during which it lost three places. A glance at the results table shows that, had it kept those three places, the final positions could have been rather different.
One of those places was lost to V.Ships, which won "a very close fought battle" at the end of the race. It doubtlessly contributed to the overall result, making it "probably the most important result of the day for us," the crew's log suggests. And Castrol lost a couple of places in the final beat as some of its crew were distracted by helping crewmember Malcolm Parrott, whose leg was trapped by the genoa sheet. "Leave it there; it's only a short leg," shouted skipper Willem Wester, as he tried to get his team focused on more important things than saving Malcolm's limb.
Same again?
With another film loaded, Fairplay's man with the auto-drive set off once
again to irritate those crews who had eluded his earlier efforts to capture
their images for posterity. But the fleet is not in the same mood as before;
preparation and determination has been replaced by reflection and acceptance
in some boats. In Fairplay's No 1 boat, for example, "most departments were
subjected to a performance evaluation and re-engineered."
Others are more upbeat. Trinity House broke out the lunch revelling in "euphoria and the joy of survival" after its third place finish, "all fear, nausea and embarrassment gone." But their log's disparaging remarks about the proffered Wensleydale and carrot sandwiches suggest that nausea may have been attempting a comeback.
The wind has dropped during the morning and the sun has appeared, making lunchtime seem like a holiday on the BP Marine boat, idling along under just the mainsail. But this reverie is short lived as the time for the second race approaches and the genoa is hauled up again. But there is a snag: the halyard parts company with the head of the sail and "the silence and lovely atmosphere on board disappears." There is no option but to rig up a makeshift bosun's chair and send bowman James Maslen up the mast to retrieve the remains. He brings down a bent piston-shackle that is swiftly cut off and a bowline tied to reattach the sail.
But it all takes time and, by the time BP reaches the start line, the race is two minutes old; it is a delay that they will never make up and which hurts BP guest Franz Janshen deeply. After the race and, later, when posing for a photo of the crew that won the trophy for being first across the start line of the first race, he clutches the shackle as if it were some glorious trophy and even offers it as a permanent prize for the boat that suffers the worst unforced error.
Had BP Marine repeated its achievement at the start of the second race, Franz may have had another frustration. The tide had turned since the earlier start, pushing the fleet towards the start line and from the committee boat _ where Fairplay's reporter is still finishing his lunch, the outer mark disappears from view a couple of seconds before the starting hooter sounds. That suggests that a number of boats were over the line at the start, but the photograph on page 13 _ taken as the button was pushed _ shows two boats clearly ahead of the rest; sail Nos 62 and 78.
So the race officer called back two boats but, just as World Cup football linesmen make the odd mistake, he announced the offenders as boats 62 (Fairplay's Press Gang) and 53 (Harwich Haven).
"We wuz robbed," said Lloyd's Register-Fairplay MD Richard Silk later, who refused to believe that his sail number could have been visible through "at least five boats to weather of us that were not called back." Judging by the photograph, Harwich Haven have more to complain about. "We placed ourselves over the line on the gun for the second race, or so we thought," notes the crew's log, "but we were asked very nicely if we would like to please try that again, so we went back and showed them just how we did it the first time." It lost them the advantage of what should have been a good start, "but it gave me another chance to practise many of those new words again," the log-writer noted.
First race winner, Dorchester, made a good start to the second race and then, along with half the fleet, followed the path of the strongest tide, as defined by the Admiralty Tidal Stream Atlas. "Suffice it to say," noted Dorchester's log-keeper, "that the Admiralty could do with a little better local knowledge." Those boats that tacked across the Solent found both a stronger tide and a lift from the wind. "We simply could not believe that the leading boat was so far ahead half way to the first mark," Dorchester's crew mourned. And then their kicking strap pulled put of the mast, ending what chance they had of defending their lead.
By this time, the wind has freshened again and, even with plastic bags to protect both notebook and camera from the spray, reporting the second race was not straightforward. From what remains of his notes, Fairplay's scribe clearly took particular interest in the windward mark and noted two boats _ Marriott and Richards Butler _ as approaching it on port tack while other yachts came up on starboard. But history does not repeat itself and they tack in comfortably astern of their competitors. Behind them and clearly in further difficulty, is the Press Gang. Like BP, it has suffered a broken genoa halyard, dumping the sail on the deck. Even so, the crew had made up three places by the time it reached the mark.
The Michael Else crew also suffered from ropework problems, this time with a genoa sheet. They had decided not to use the spinnaker but, as they went about and tried to switch the genoa across, "the sheet shredded as it ran through the block. White rope came out of one end while red `skin' built up at the other." The result was inevitable: "it jammed, we went about again under `action stations', the sheet was cut, a new one was taken from the spinnaker, everyone moved fast to reposition sheets through their blocks, the final connection made, the boat turned and we were off again." Exciting stuff, but time consuming, putting the team towards the back of the fleet.
Trinity House had a similar experience, only it was the genoa halyard whose sheathing failed, this time jamming in the block at the masthead and preventing the sail from being lowered. Meanwhile, another boat gave them a gentle nudge, pushing them into a premature gybe. Crewmember Steve Collett's spare shoes nearly went over the side, with him in them, as the boom struck him on the head, pitching him into the guard rails until the mayhem aloft was sorted out.
Not every crew was spending valuable time fighting with its gear; some had time to admire the passing shipping making its way to Portsmouth or Southampton. There was, for example, a large car carrier working its way up the Solent that caught the eye of Amos Cohen, a guest on the Totem Plus boat and whose Antares Shipping owns a ship that looks very similar.
In fact, it looks identical, for this was Amos's brand new 4,500 car-capacity Galaxy Leader, on charter to NYK. He had commissioned the ship, specified its outfit and even chosen its green/blue colour scheme, so he did what any ship owner would do in the middle of a race _ he called the captain from his mobile phone. "Do you see that small yacht on your starboard side?" Amos asked. "Yes," replied the captain warily. "This is your owner speaking and I am on that yacht." Draught constraints unfortunately prevented the ship from manoeuvring to form a windbreak for Totem's competitors.
Same again?
There is something very predictable about spinnaker runs. Someone will dump
theirs in the water, someone else will let the sheets fly. And there will
be any number of hourglasses careering downwind. Lloyd's Register, for example,
would probably have appreciated a windbreak at the start of their downwind
leg. "Broaching with the spinnaker 2 m from the top of the mast was a mere
distraction compared with having no control of the mainsail," the LR log records.
Somehow, the topping lift had caught on a backstay block about 3 m off the
deck and "it was not for disconnecting, making the helmsman's attempt to bear
away rather fruitless." They appear to have controlled the boat from the foredeck
"with deft and delicate spinnaker handling" until, nearing the downwind mark,
the sail "made a detour inside the forestay" and became little more than a
large flag. "It is not entirely clear how the problem was sorted, but order
magically reappeared."
Castrol debated whether to fly a spinnaker and, on the basis that "he who dares, wins," hauled it aloft. That was fine until the gybe at the bottom mark, when "the spinnaker chose to wrap itself around the forestay." With no drive from the kite and no chance of hoisting anything past the tangle, boats that it had pulled away from now caught up and overtook. Once the genoa was back in place, Castrol recovered one place and made most of the final beat on port tack "which for some reason our boat loved." It had certainly had plenty of practice at it in the first race.
Had the race been longer, Castrol's crew is sure it would have made inroads into the higher placings. Fairplay's Press Gang felt the same, having passed half the fleet after their re-start to finish 12th, helped by some daring spinnaker work that was completed without the pole's topping lift, which had been attached to the genoa for use at the end of the run. Their rivals on Prime Mover, encouraged by their colleagues' misfortune at the start and their vocal skipper, were especially enthusiastic during the second race, securing seventh place at the line.
Some dispensed with spinnakers and seemed none the worse for doing so; Marriott opted to do without it for the whole day _ winning the safe sailing trophy for their efforts _ and still managed a creditable eighth place in the second race. Sperry, on the other hand, found that flying the kite from a single halyard at the masthead, and nothing else, was "decorative, but not very efficient."
Clifford Chance's crew came to regret leaving their spinnaker behind, but they had an explanation for their "tactic in storming into last position." It is part of a longer term strategy "to throw people off the scent for our return next year."
At the other end of the fleet, V.Ships had stormed into first place early on, thanks to its navigator choosing a course to make good use of the tide on the windward leg _ a decision that was nonetheless "questioned long and hard by the crew," the boat's log notes. Combined with its sixth place in the first race, this ensured that the Fairplay Cup belonged to V.Ships. Bluewater, coming in second place, was kept out of the prizes by its 12th position in the first race, while Lloyd's Register's crew, coming in third, wished they had been overtaken _ as they had been by an unidentified boat in the first race which then luffed up another boat, allowing LR to pass both of them. "If only our overtaking friend could have taken V.Ships off on a jolly," their report ends.
The Baltic Exchange's fourth place gave them fourth place overall, but Leica Geosystems' fifth place, combined with its fourth in the first race, achieved third place for their day's efforts.
Same again?
Back at the yacht club bar, the race was being re-run over beer and sandwiches
among those who had not already slipped off to soothe their bruised limbs
in a refreshing shower. Trinity House's crew were probably not the only ones
still aching when they arrived at Portsmouth Dockyard for the celebration
dinner and spotted a plain white box at every place. "Great! Liniment!" said
one of its crew. "Better still, it could be haemorrhoid cream," came an anonymous
reply. It actually contained a fancy penknife _ something that some boats
would have found useful earlier in the day for clearing jammed ropes.
There was no doubting that, according to the final placings, the winners all merited their prizes, but more than one table was heard muttering "we was robbed" as they took their places. Half of those present were sure they had been first over the line, the other half had been denied victory by events outside their control.
Knives, forks, spoons and other props were pressed into service to explain and understand The Collision, The Start, The Tide, The Wind Shift, leaving a mood of defiance and determination. "Well done to V.Ships," acknowledged the Denholm Group's report, "but clearly a case of beginner's luck." "Next year we are going to have to do something about that lighthouse lot," muttered Harwich Haven's reporter. "There's always next year," said disappointed Dorchester. "We look forward to a top-five position next year," hoped Castrol. "The knowledge that we probably could have won this year is a motivating factor for next year," accepted BP. "We'll be back with a vengeance," warned Sperry. "We will probably get some pre-race practice," predicted Cathelco.
In short, everyone is making plans for next year's Fairplay Cup. Same again anyone?