Skipper’s Log: To The Fastnet Rock in 2015

3,450 views  |   August 19th, 2015 

Malham-13

Here is a very exciting blog from Challenger 2 skipper Ricky Chalmers, who is guiding the First Class Sailing crew to the Fastnet Rock and back.

As you will see it was quick a hairy start at Cowes and then a high degree of seamanship to find wind and battle the tides. All part and parcel of being First Class Sailing Skipper!

Wednesday 29 August, 11 am

After a race dominated thus far by light wind sailing and desperately trying to keep the 47 ton challenge boat moving westwards when the tide turned against us, we are now charging at ten knots straight to the Fastnet Rock in 20 knots of breeze.

The Fastnet 2015 race started for us at 13:20 on Sunday the 16th. The bulk of the 370 competitors has already started, and each class start before us has been followed by long lists of sail numbers read out over the VHF radio of “X rays”, yachts which were OCS on their starts, across the line too early.

Judging not Jumping the Gun (Sunday, Cowes)

A scattering of spinnakers were fighting their way back to the line against the flow of traffic clawing their way back against the strong spring tide. With little boat speed in the light winds, and limited steerage what with being crowded at the Yacht Squadron end of the line and the negligible boat speed.

So it was all about speed and distance judgement, trying to match the seconds running down on the clock to our start and the drift of the strong spring tide pulling us towards the imaginary line in the water.

“Bang” another start and more sail numbers being called out on the last start before ours. 13:10, the beginning of our start sequence and six minutes before our engines need to be turned off and the die is cast and we let the story unfold.

A quick glance behind us. Challengers 1 and 3 are further back and Challenger 4 is being very conservative, way back. “Bang”, four minutes to our start, engine off, and helm hard over to bring us hard on the wind on Starboard.

All other Class One boats are to windward, the other Challengers are well behind. 2 minutes to go – we are committed now, the tide is accelerating us towards the line, the Inner Distance Mark is fine on our course, but we still have a bit of wind angle to play with, which gives us a small bit of control.

One minute to go, “bang”, the penultimate cannon in our start sequence goes. OK, it looks like we are just going to pull this off, Fourty Seconds to go, harden up and try and squeeze the line and bunch the other starters…

Challenger 2 Crosses the Starting Line

“Bang”, we are off, the IDM slides by our port side. We are now in some seriously strong tide close inshore with a number of yellow bouys and a big North Cardinal approaching fast.

That Cardinal and I have a history going back, I have a healthy respect for how quickly you can get tided onto it and how nasty the damage can be if you misjudge it all. We slide between the last Yellow and Gurnard North Cardinal buoys. Now we have Cat Zero behind us to windward and one smaller boat to leeward’.

They suddenly tack, and just clear our bow. “Starboard” shouts Gary on the bow of Cat Zero, they are not going to make it…this could get messy. They tack back and are now squeezed between two large 47 ton steel boats. I am now being prevented from tacking and they can’t either.

Gurnard Ledge is approaching, a quick glance at the depth…

After the excitement of the start, we cross tacked with the other 370 competitors and the occasional spectator boat down the Solent in patchy wind which was just enough to keep the big boats moving. Ten minutes after our start it was the turn of Class Zero and we had the spectacle of Comanche, Rambler 88 and Leopard charging past us with huge carbon code zero asymmetric kite driving them on.

SCA tacked to put us having to give way on Port Tack – no, not having that and we put in a quick tack and they charge past us to windward in all their pink finery.

Artemis a big old style Open 60 with Deck Spreaders speeds towards us and bears away last minute, we hold our breath as their deck spreader glides inches past our backstay…

The Needles, the Tide and where is the Wind?

The Needles Channel provided the usual short tacking, cross tacking excitement, but thankfully the Challengers were now clear at the back of the fleet with just a few slower cruisy boats taking part in the race to keep us company. We spot a 40 footer hard aground on the Shingle Bank and already leaning over, 4 hours to low water – they are going to be there a while.

A helicopter press photographer captures up the embarrassing drama for the living room couch racers at home. We tack clear of the Needles unhindered by the press helicopters which are buzzing Comanche, Rambler 88 and the poor vessel aground.

We have started, we have got out of the Solent. A big relief, now will we make it to the Rock and back in these light winds? We only need an average of four knots to beat the cutoff of 10am Saturday, I glance at the SOG, 2.5 knots – the tide has turned against us and the Sea Breeze is dying.

Monday Morning

Monday Morning

Monday Morning

Monday morning, the tide turns in our favour in a hour, and we have kept the boat creeping westward all through the night, the Kedge anchor and warp get moved back down to the forepeak.

The wind fills a bit from the North, the kite comes on deck and the race begins to get out kite up first. Pole up…not that high…jockey pole rigged, hoist hoist hoist! The kite fills as the Genoa is dropped down, comforting popping sounds as the wool bursts, crack as the kite fills and the boat glides forward under new power.

All day we trim the kite, pulling a lead out from Challengers 3 and 4. Challenger 1 maintains an annoying lead on us hard won through the night’s light airs. Pasties and Beans for lunch. Lots of sun cream on and juice drunk in the warm sunshine. We run our first water tank dry.

One day – one tank. Mot good, we have seven days to go and only three tanks remaining. I open up the salt water pumps and brief the crew on using salt water to wash the dishes – not to be used for the tea as is now the constant danger.

Prawl Point on the far side of Lyme Bay beckons. The tide runs particularly strong there but we will just make it in time. We push on. The sea breeze starts to die again with the sun low on the horizon ahead. Our boat speed tumbles.

We get just past Prawl Point, off Salcolm. Challenger 3 are first to get pushed back East in the tide. Challenger 4 must have spotted the trouble ahead, and tacks away South to try and get out of the inshore tide. Her course isn’t great, just on the good side of due South. We discount that as an option and start hauling all our rope out of the forepeak.

50m depth, we are going to need a lot of it… The kedge anchor is heaved over the side and streams to the depths below followed by about a hundred and fifty meters of assorted rope. We avoid giving up any of our hard won West and tuck into our Chilli Con Carne dinner as the sun sets and boats all around us start dropping their anchors also. The reflected sun glistens in the mirror sea.

Challenger 1 Jumps Through the Gate

Annoyingly Challenger 1, just that bit ahead of us has got through the tidal gate in the nick of time and is sailing on. That will be a crucial advantage I am sure. We keep a close eye on the wind. Five hours to wait for the tide to change if the wind doesn’t kick back to life. We wait.

Challenger 1 sails on westwards. Challenger 4 sails on to the South. Challenger 3 loses lots of ground to the East and then finally anchors also. The mirrored sea starts to ripple and the drooping Rolex backstay flag starts to flutter. The wind is back. Activity breaks out on deck in the dark.

Back up goes the Genoa, up is heaved the kedge anchor, and we glide on in the light but building and finally fairly consistent breeze. Eddystone Lighthouse blinks brightly to our North, with the loom of the lights of Plymouth in the background beyond. The finish line is tantalizingly close, within sight, and yet still five hundred miles away.

Challengers 2, 3 and 4 battle it out, each having good periods and then watching their hard won gains dribble away as the enemy trims better than them or just has the luck of being in just slightly better breeze.

Challenger 1 eventually pushes their advantage beyond the thirty mile range of our AIS and we lose sight of them. I stop making up imaginary Challenger 1’s on the horizon for the crew to hunt down and we resign ourselves to racing Challengers 3 and 4.

Tuesday Morning

Tuesday Morning

South of Lizard Point the three start to converge again as we come together on different tacks. Challenger 3 seem to be ahead of us, and Challenger 4 are seemingly well ahead. Oops, trim trim trim.

We all hit a light patch, the boat speeds tumble again and the big Genoa hangs limp. The tide is against us now and we all concentrate on the COG display, willing it against going East. It swings again to the North East, then to the East. The mirrored sea shows no sign of wind.

Frenetic action on the foredeck again as the anchor gets plucked from the forepeak and the mass of rope gets quickly flaked out and joined together, bowline to bowline with gaffer taped ends.

We are seconds away from launching it all over the side when the breeze comes back and starts to build. Within ten minutes we have a steady breeze of seven knots and we are making steady progress again.

Lands End approaches and we have a decision to make, go North and around the Eastern side of the TSS or keep tacking West and try and make it between the Scilly Isles and the TSS or perhaps even further Westward around the islands themselves.

This could be a crucial decision. Tides, wind forecast, relative positions of the boats and a quick flip of a coin and roll of the dice and we tack North to hug the Lands End coastline.

Decision of The Scilles

It seems the best decision, so why have the others not tacked yet. What have we missed?

We go through it all again, tides, wind, timings for when the tides turn and where we will most likely be when it turns against us. 1.8 knots against for the inshore TSS route, 0.8 knots against for our chosen route.

We scratch our heads again as we watch Challengers 3 and 4 continue South South West away from us. Then Challenger 3 tacks. What is Challenger 4 trying to do ?

Fourty five minutes later she finally tacks. She has lost massive ground on us and then inexplicably tacks back again. We lose her on the AIS, still travelling South South West as we push on directly to the Fastnet Rock to the North West.

Challenger 3 closes the gap with a slightly better boat speed than us, now there are two in our race.

Wednesday Morning

Wednesday Morning

Wednesday Morning

Writing of this blog was interrupted as the head of our Yankee 1 headsail ripped off. Another twist in the Fastnet 2015 saga for Challenger 2.

We have now got the smaller Yankee 2 up and flying after some fighting to get the ripped sail down and the new one up.

We have last half a knot of boat speed and also the ability to pole out the Yankee 1 after rounding the rock. Some swear words come to mind, why now after we held it so long in stronger winds last night.

Now that the winds are finally starting to ease it decides to blow. Looking at the state of the sail cloth and the plethora of previous repairs I think I can guess. Ten years, the abuse of a Global Challenge Round The World race and numerous Tall Ships Atlantic crossing have just done it in.

So as I was saying, Wednesday morning and the rock is 30 miles away. The wind has come forward which puts us in a good place compared to Challenger 3 who is eight miles to leeward of us and more importantly to leeward of the rock.

We should round the rock in daylight which will be novel for me, and then we can start the race back to Plymouth, warm showers and beer.

Ricky Chalmers
Skipper and Yankee destroyer
Challenger 2

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Posted by: First Class Sailing

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