The October Fast Cruise was sailed in glorious sunshine and a gentle, 10 knot SE breeze. This year we are trying an experiment by using two courses, a short one for yachts that have a club handicap of 0.900 or lower and a longer course for yachts with a club handicap greater than 0.900.We also combined the Fast Cruise with the Frostbite rally this year which meant that we saw some different boats gathering around the starting line between NE and SE Ryde Middle buoys. And not to do things by halves it was also the same weekend that Little Ship club members were invited aboard Lutine, a 53 foot Swan owned by Lloyds Sailing Club and this duly appeared at the start as well.

This weekend I, along with seven other regular crew members of Juno, was sailing on a chartered Sun Odyssey 37, the sails of which had the same look as a damp t-shirt that had been in the bottom of my kit bag all summer. (Well that's our excuse for the poor finishing position.)

The first leg of the course was a short beat, south eastwards towards Mother Bank followed by a run against the tide to Peel Bank and then Norris. Our chartered boat came with a spinnaker but initially our foredeck crew struggled with the pole stowage against the mast and with the baby stay. In fact they requested that we keep the gybes down to only those that are necessary. Of course, as tactician, and with the wind dead on the stern, I insited that we sailed the angles meaning we were gybing every 5 or 10 minutes.

At Peel Bank the fleet split in two, the faster boats now beating back to South Ryde Middle and doing a sausage back to Norris and then to South Ryde Middle whilst the slower fleet went towards West Ryde Middle,  Hill Head and then up Southampton Water. The faster fleet went to West Ryde Middle after the two sausage legs but then had a beat back to East Bramble before they could join the slower boats at Hill Head and up Southampton Water.

Although we were holding our own on the downwind legs we found we were losing a lot of ground on the up wind legs. Apart from the old sails the car positions were all wrong but couldn't be moved whilst under load. It took several tacks before they were anywhere near the right position. It also felt like the primary winches had not been greased this century.

At last we reached East Bramble and had a long run up Southampton Water with the wind dead astern and the spinnaker set. By this time the tide was just beginning to ebb and so we hugged the Netley shore to keep out of the tide, sailing in as far as we dared before gybing out a short way and then gybing back into the shore. (it kept the foredeck crew busy!). At Netley Don Shankley had provided both groups of boats with a sausage back to After Barn which meant a last beat of just less than a mile. Here we tacked off into the main channel to pick up the tide before going on to Starboard tack back towards After Barn. Here we were nearly run down by a big Volvo 70 yacht running on port gybe under mainsail only but with no lookout. After we explained to him who the give way vessel was a very startled helmsman managed to pass astern of us.

After one more spinnaker hoist (and many more gybes) we crossed the finish line at NW Netley and headed into Ocean Village. As we motored in we spotted Isis, moored just inside the marina and made a mental note of where to gather for the pontoon party. Over 70 club members and guests arrived by boat and land for the party at Isis and then retired to the RSYC for the Frostbite and Fast Cruise Dinner.

The following morning I was woken by the sound of foghorns. I climbed out of my warm bunk and peered out of the companionway to see the Itchen lost in the mist. I gather that one or two boats attempted an early departure but returned to Ocean Village. This was not a problem for us as the younger members (and some of the not son young members) of our crew had found a nightclub in Southampton. The rest of the crew were woken at 0400 by the hatch squeaking open followed by three crashes  as they each made contact with the cabin sole missing out the steps altogether. They certainly were not ready to sail until all the fog had burnt away.

Most people that I spoke to in the evening seemed to like the idea of two different courses so that boats of all shapes and sizes arrive at about the same time. This weekend the conditions seemed to favour the boats on the shorter course as the four of the first five boats did the shorter course. Hopefully this will balance out over the series.