Sailing Reality in the Myth of Malham

Tripping the Spinnaker

The First Class Sailing crew getting ready for the Fastnet and recently took part in the Myth of Malham. In this blog Hinrich Grunwaldt describes a most unusual race…

Bonding with the Crew and Boat

On Friday morning of what was promising to be an unusually sunny bank holiday weekend we, the crew of Challenger 2, joined skipper Ricky, mate Imogen and our watch leaders Kirstie and Tony at Gunwharf Quays.

Little time was lost to get the boat ready for action and very soon we were out on the Solent heading towards Cowes where the race was due to start the next day. ‘A glass or two will do us no harm’ was the motto and the evening saw us enter town dressed as pirates and enjoying an excellent variety of rum drinks at a local bar.

The next morning, some of us better rested than others but everyone in high spirits, we prepared the boat and sailed her to the start line.

After a smooth Spinnaker start we were approaching the Needles when we received a call from one of the other Challenger boats: Challenger 1 was facing steering problems because a drifting line from a lobster cage had wrapped itself around the rudder.

Naturally, there are no two options in such a situation and, as quickly as possible, we temporarily stopped racing, dropped the sails and busied ourselves preparing the boat for a tow.

Helping at Sea

After a few hours of sturdy towing against the tide, we spent another night in Cowes –a significantly less raucous affair than the one before, it has to be said, as we were still officially in the race and not allowed to step ashore.

On Sunday, we were racing again in the Channel when another distress call was received: An offshore diver had gone unaccounted for and the coast guard was coordinating a search around his last known position.

We diverted from our course and spent the rest of the afternoon tacking through the search area in a methodical pattern alongside RNLI boats, other yachts and SAR helicopters on an aerial search criss-crossing above our heads.

Upon sunset the search had to be called off and – motoring back to the Solent taking course on Southampton – the mood on board seemed a tad damper than usual as our thoughts were with the diver and his fate.

Making Use of Time

Monday was used for some spinnaker-pole drills on the way back to Gunwharf Quays – a very useful exercise as everyone had to chance to go through the motions of a Spinnaker hoist, jibe and drop in his or her own time.

On reflection it was a weekend with less racing time than expected but nevertheless lots of interesting learning points and, if you managed to blend out that presumably a life was lost at sea, overall a great experience.

Posted by: First Class Sailing