Cowes Yacht Haven

The first Fast Cruises of the season were held on the 20th October in strong tides and flukey shifting light winds. Congratulations to all those who managed to beat the conditions and finish to join the Frostbite Rally in Cowes Yacht Haven in time for Iain Muspratt's pontoon party

This year we are planning to hold 2 shorter Cruises on some weekends with different course for the faster and the slower boats. Another change was using a distance and bearing to a buoy to define the starting line rather than using 2, not very convieiently placed, buoys. Setting the courses was a challenge with the forecast showing different wind directions each day although all forecasts seem to suggest less than 5 knots. On Friday the forecast was for south to south westerlies and so two short courses were set starting at NE Ryde Middle with, hopefully, a beat to the first buoy, SE Ryde Middle. As it turned out on Saturday morning the wind was from the east north east so the "beat" to the first buoy was actually a spinnaker run. The true wind speed measured on Juno was about 8 knots but I think most of that was caused by the strong flood tide!

The courses were set over Ryde Middle Bank to allieviate some of the tidal effects but it was still flooding very strongly and the run back to W Ryde Middle seemed to take forever. It was necessary to shorten the Cruise so that everyone could finish in a reasonable time.

The second Cruise started at N Ryde Middle at 1400. Unfortunately this turned out to be a rounding mark for a very large Sunsail Fleet and so we had to postpone the start by 5 minutes to allow the majority of the fleet to pass and also change the side of the buoy for the starting line so that any Sunsail stragglers would not round into our fleet of 19 starters. Once again the planned beat turned into a running start. The foredeck crew of one boat has been sent back to school to learn how to read some simple four letter words such as H-E-A-D and C-L-E-W!! He also learnt some other four letter words but I won't spell those out. By this time the tide was on the turn with the ebb beginning. All boats managed the first leg to Norris without too much difficulty but some of the slower boats were caught by a large container ship coming in and had to delay their crossing back to the second mark at W Ryde Middle. As the fleet started the close fetch back to E Bramble the wind dropped to almost nothing and virtually all of the slower boats,sailing the shorter course, were beaten by the increasing ebb tide. Special congratulations must go to Musyk who, after nearly 3 hours and 30 minutes, managed to complete the shortened short course of 4.2 miles, an average speed of just over 1 knot. The only short course boat to finish.

This year there will be two series of results. The first based on the new club handicapping system and the second based on the progressive system that has been used in previous years although with the starting handicaps reset to the club handicap. The results for the first Cruise are here for the second Cruise here. Notice  that there is good overlap of boats from both the short course and the long course in the first Cruise. The progressive handicap results are the same for the first Cruise but the handicaps will change for the second and each subsequent Cruise. The progressive results for Fast Cruise 1 Cruise 2 are here.

The November Fast Cruise on the 17th November will go to Lymington and this will take the form of one longer passage type cruise.