Many thanks to Pete Mackenzie for this personal in-depth account
of the 2 handed race. Although much longer than the usual Clydesailing summaries
it is presented entirely unedited because we think it's a highly entertaining
read with lots of philosophical and practical points which can be argued at length
on the discussion board. Why we don't all buy old Moody 33s and sail short handed
I really don't know...
Hot'n'Tot's 2002 Scottish Two-Handed Long Course Or the view from the rear - front - and finally and sadly, the rear again.
Prelude/Prediction Andy had been
assiduously tracking the forecasts since the previous weekend and the various
sources had converged in their predictions by Friday: 15 knots northerly more
or less, for the start, veering all the way to southerly by Sunday morning, and
easing to 10, maybe 5 knots. [Some of the weather charts had those funny flag
things with lots of tails just to the west of Islay; but they're not coming in
here, so we don't need to worry about them…] So, that'll mean spinny from Largs,
down the Kilbrannan Sound to Iron Rock Ledges ( miles), beat to Pladda ( miles),
spinny back, possibly slowly, to Largs via the east of Arran ( miles). A long
but relatively stress-free race was in prospect; any hope of us finishing by dawn
on Sunday was looking a wee bit optimistic.
A quick squint at the list of entries in the LSC lobby on Saturday morning showed
Hot'n'Tot, at 18.75 min/hr, to be rated slowest of the 14 entries by a long way
- more so than ever before in this race, in fact.
Predictions, then: if it's light and we do well, we'll be told we've fluked it
through the usual vagary of the "time-on-time" handicapping system; if it's heavy
and we do well, it'll have been "a day for the heavy boat". [In fact, at nominally
4.7 tonnes, the Moody was the 5th or 6th lightest boat in the class.]
Start Hot'n'Tot's masthead No1 Mylar
Genoa can't be tacked quickly two-handed. The presence of the baby stay means
that it absolutely must be carried over, and with the prestart wind building up
to and beyond the top end of this sail's range, mixing it with another 70 or 80
boats near the line was not appealing. The result of this was no timed runs and
a poor start. Sunfast 36, Scarlet Fever, was worse though, coming in on our transom,
and trying to barge into the five foot gap we'd cleared the mark by. Best for
all concerned to draw a veil over the next 30 very intimate seconds but our flag
went up and they took their turns.
Largs-Garroch Head The underlying wind speed was now about 18 knots, gusting
up to about 25 knots for the beat to Keppel on the SE tip of the big Cumbrae,
and beyond the top end of full sail. (Weather note: this meant the wind was almost
from the south, 180 degrees away from the forecast direction. A reassessment was
probably in order. Too much to think about now, though.) Everyone else seemed
to be set up similarly, i.e., overcanvassed, but most of the more sporty boats,
i.e., the rest, seemed to be struggling to cope, badly screwing up to the wind
and falling sideways. We chose to run slightly more free than the pack, accepting
the foul tide in the middle of the Largs Channel, rather than cheating it along
the Cumbrae shore as most seemed to be aiming to do, but staying upright, going
fast and minimising leeway. It worked. In the short distance from the start to
Keppel pier, we'd pulled ourselves up from second last to about 7th on the water.
The lead boats, Tartan Revolution, Red Alert and Aye! seemed to have been relatively
unphased by the blustery conditions and they were joined off Millport by Scarlet
Fever which only now seemed to be getting into her stride. For a spell through
the Tan, the wind eased to about 15 and, with the sun breaking through, it seemed
the forecast conditions were about to arrive. Not for long though, and all around,
reefs were being taken in or deepened and headsails reduced. We went down to the
ancient (20+ y.o.!) but very flat 120% Genoa as we neared the southern tip of
Bute with the wind meter showing 22, but occasionally gusting 27 knots (27 being
about top of the useful range for this setup).
Garroch Head - Cock of Arran Well if you've got it, flaunt it! The Moody shifts
as well as any boat of similar length when we get up to these wind speeds and
we were able to attach ourselves to Red Alert, Aye! and Tartan Revolution, grouped
about half a mile ahead of us. For almost an hour, we were able to stay in contact,
even gaining slightly on the nearest boat, Red Alert, during that time. Then in
quick succession they tacked. Squaaaaaalll! The great corrie which is Arran's
Glen Sannox was engulfed in a sinister black cloud which was spilling over the
cliffs and shore at Fallen Rocks. The white caps merged into wind blown spray
about three miles ahead of us and all the way to the Arran coast. Rightly or wrongly,
I guessed that the lead boats on our side of the fleet had spotted this and decided
to get in their tacks now in and attempt to run away from it. Several deeply reefed
boats which had fallen off out to the left had nowhere to go. We tacked out to
the right and were soon registering 34 - 37 knots with some gusts over 40 (maximum
44). Feathering up - all the time, since this was like a 20 minute gust! - we
were able to make about 5 knots at 30 degrees apparent, still with full main and
120% genny. In the middle of this, we had a close encounter with the Sigma 33,
Sanjoy, with her sails spilling and reaching across our bow about 30 degrees further
off the wind than Hot'n'Tot, followed by Breagha, more or less beam reaching under
a 2/3 rolled up headsail alone. Even further off the wind, the professionally
crewed Elan 31 demonstrator, Aye! passed us too, running back to Kip. [Gear failure?
Boat failure? I think we should be told.] Fly, the Impala, by far the lightest
boat, had taken a pasting from Garroch Head out and continued to lose ground but,
as far as we could see, she at least kept going when several of the much bigger
boats had resorted to simply hanging on. When the spray had settled, we were fourth
on the water, about a mile behind the leading pack, the order ahead being Tartan
Revolution, Scarlet Fever, Red Alert. We timed the OOD 34, Red Alert, about 10
minutes ahead at Cock of Arran cottage: Stuart needed 16 minutes on us to be level
at this stage...
Cock of Arran - Iron Rock Ledges Now it started to go wrong. We chose to
short tack along the Arran shore, which was substantially lifted, crossing tacks
just ahead of Tangle of the Isles and (v. carefully) Dansa. We were lulled, literally,
into changing back to the No 1 with the wind down to 15 and the boat seriously
underpowered. Tangle changed up too, possibly not so far, but on Hot'n'Tot we've
no choice - the in-between sail is a slightly undersized No 1 which is too stretchy
for pointing in these conditions. Five minutes after a slick sail change, the
wind was up to the mid 20s again, with white horses thick on the surface all the
way across the Kilbrannan Sound to Skipness on the Kintyre peninsula. The urgently
needed change back down was jinxed, and certainly not helped by a split, we found
later, which had developed across the (2 year old) foil of the old number 3, about
two feet from the head. With problems out on the foredeck and with gusts of 30
now, saving the life of the No 1 was the only priority and down it came. One slight
mistake in feathering up to the wind - either way, by falling off or backing it
- would have had the sail in tatters or stretched to uselessness. It took ten
bare-headed minutes, and several attempts to hoist the No 3, and meanwhile, Dansa,
Tangle of the Isles, and now Breagha and Sunsail 2, had romped past, opening up
almost a mile on us. Well, at least the sun was shining. Round the corner and
passing Lochranza, we were able to crack off a bit.
The focus was now on simply tweaking the sails to get the most out of the boat
on the progressively lifting fetch/reach down the west side of Arran to Imachar.
Sigma 33, Sanjoy, and Sunfast 36, Sunsail 27 and ex-Sunsail First 35s5, Corvi,
spread over half a mile in line astern from us and not gaining, with Fly some
way behind them. Passing between Carradale and Imachar, we were able to free off
more, as the Arran coast runs off slightly more to the west here, and now hoisted
the 1.5oz spinnaker for a broad reach with 20 odd knots of true wind, occasionally
near 30. The next hour gave us an exhilarating ride, averaging about 8.5 knots
and touching 10.5 at times, all in glorious sunshine and with the boat behaving
impeccably. With our sails more than fully powered up like this, in combination
with our very long waterline, there was no prospect of the following boats coming
back at us on this leg. Then, for the first time in 9 years, the wind speed readout
died. Andy went forward to have a look. "You know the loops of string *********
[name withheld to protect the guilty, our erstwhile foredeck] wanted on all the
snapshackle release rings. The one on the spinny halyard's wrapped over the anemometer."
Great! My yogic chants, positive thinking, self hypnosis, head banging off the
wheel, streams of profanities, etc., etc., were to no avail. Ten minutes later,
the spinnaker tripped itself from masthead (fortunately with no damage to the
sail nor, surprisingly, the anemometer). Andy quickly fished the kite on board
as we swept past - it hardly got wet - and hoisted the No 1. Options (in decreasing
order of practicality): 1) stick with what we've got and resort to our heavy weather
broad-reach course tactic of, reach - goosewing - reach - goosewing, to the Iron
Rock buoy about 4 miles further on and then hoist the kite on the spare jib halyard;
2) hoist the kite now on a jib halyard, but then, at the gybe we'd need at Iron
Rock buoy, drop it, swap halyards, and hoist again (once you think about headsail
hoists too, this option was far more complicated than it first seems); 3) Andy
goes up the mast and retrieves the spinnaker halyard (as the halyards don't come
back to the cockpit, the only way this could have been done involved dropping
the main, if not both sails, to let me leave the helm and go to the mast winches
to hoist him up). We'd lost about 1.5 to 2 knots of boatspeed and the second option
was probably the one to go for, but with all the faffing about this would require,
and given the distance to the gybe, and taking into account the probable cost
of another foul-up, I reckoned our odds were more favoured by the temporary white
sail approach. While we were sorting ourselves out and deciding what to do about
it, Sunsail 27 passed (this would be off Drumadoon and Blackwaterfoot), and Sanjoy,
Corvi and Fly had closed up astern.
Iron Rock - Cumbrae Light With the 1.5 oz kite up again and broad reaching
along Arran's southern shore, we were back to holding our own against our neighbours.
Rounding Pladda allowed us to get an approximate check on our time relative to
the boats ahead: it was no surprise to find our deficit was well into double figures
in minutes, and that was corrected time. With any wind at all to play with, neither
the Crawford brothers nor Stuart MacDonald, respectively Tartan Revolution and
Red Alert, were going to give us that back in the remaining 25 miles (no disrespect
to the others, I just don't know them). Heading north from Pladda, the shortest
route to Cumbrae Light is close in to the Arran shore. With any west in the wind,
the east coast of Arran can be awkward - flukey, gusty and full of holes. Sunsail
27, a few hundred yards ahead, seemed to have a good line fairly close in and
we followed, and quite suddenly, and too late, straight into a growing hole. Sanjoy,
far enough behind to be able spot this and take action, sailed round us in a decent
breeze, no more than 150 yards to the east. Sunsail 27 managed to extract herself
from the front edge of the hole quite quickly and she was off again in good form
but we were left ghosting for 10 or 15 minutes finally taking our medicine, donning
our oxygen masks, and reaching out to Sanjoy's track. Fortunately, Hot'n'Tot's
"stealth" heeling characteristics (zero degrees in 0 to 20 knots close hauled!)
seemed to conceal our predicament from Fly and Corvi who followed us into our
expanding volume of nothingness. North of Whiting Bay, we were enjoying good breeze
again, in the high teens and nudging into the low twenties, giving us a good close
fetch under the No 1. Inexplicably, Sanjoy was close hauled on a heading very
high of the course and now it was her turn to suffer from the holes and swirly
gusts falling off the Holy Isle, Clauchlands, and Corriegills; she was also in
a localised patch of quite nasty foul tide which isn't shown on the modern charts.
Half a mile further east, sailing slightly low, we were reeling her in quite steadily
and all but recovered our lost ground. Behind us, Fly and Corvi appeared to be
having problems extracting themselves from the hole at Dippin Point and, with
the light fading, we were not to see them again. By the time Sanjoy and Hot'n'Tot
converged at the southern tip of the Cumbraes, our deficit was down to about 5
boat lengths and we could see the colour of the Sigma's instrument lights.
Cumbrae Light - Finish Forty-five minutes max at this speed we thought;
and then, just like last year, the wind dropped. All the way to nothing; and with
the tide against us. If our race wasn't over when we lost the spinny halyard,
it most certainly was now. Bearing away into the Tan, Sanjoy (perhaps with face
to save) hoisted her kite. With halyard constraints, for us it was an unattractive
option at this stage in the game. The race had gone. Our speed was down to 2 to
3 knots over most of the last 4 miles: soul destroying but, as conventional paranoid
handicap racing wisdom decrees, the faster boats probably took the wind in with
them. 12 hours 36 minutes and 54 seconds, and 77.7 miles after starting, we crossed
the finishing line, a disappointing 8th, 38 corrected minutes (i.e., nearly an
hour in real time) adrift of winners Tartan Revolution.
Post Mortem (for anoraks only, and
NOT SUITABLE READING for OD purists) Gubbed, comprehensively, on a day the boat
was designed for. Heavy boat for a heavy day? Wrong! With a Displacement/Length
ratio of 205, the Moody 33 is, get this, borderline Light by Marchaj's definition.
For comparison, the Sigma 33 has a D/L of 235, the Contessa is 310 (Medium) and
the Nic 32 (now we're talking heavy) comes in at about 440. Impalas, Boleros,
Sonatas have Light D/Ls, all around 165, and the OOD 34 with an incredible 150
is at the top end of Very Light. In length, beam, displacement and underwater
hull lines, the old Moody has remarkable similarities to the configurations found
in the latest 33ft cruiser-racers. Its downside, in terms of out-and-out speed,
is that it has insufficient sail area for upwind performance in moderate breezes.
Furthermore, its low aspect ratio rig and keel, together with a very wide sheeting
base, make its ultimate pointing angle relatively poor. Its handicap reflects
these "weaknesses". Off the wind, however, (at only about 45 degrees apparent,
in fact), there is a cross over point at which the low aspect ratio foils progressively
perform more efficiently than those currently fashionable; put another way, you
get the same net drive for less sail area, and consequently, less keel drag too
- not much consolation on artificial windward-leeward courses, but potentially
extremely useful in offshore type races. Downwind, performance is relatively much
better due to the boat's exceptionally long waterline (equal to Sigma 33 + 2.5
ft) and big masthead kite. The long fin keel provides loads of directional stability,
but being shallow and thin, its drag contribution is very low when sailing off
the wind. The flattish aft sections of the hull provide very good potential for
surfing (Hot'nTot's clocked 13.8 knots, Lindisfarne 14.5). The conditions during
this race were an ideal combination for the Moody of heavy and ghosting, with
little in between. A very heavy beat to Arran, followed by a fetch, reach, run
to Pladda, and a close fetch back to the Tan was as good as we could have wished
for. Lack of sail power in the heavy conditions was never a problem and ultimate
pointing angles were pretty much an irrelevance too (and ditto for ghosting).
Admittedly, an extra 50 square feet of main/genoa would have been useful for clawing
out of holes, but our 0.5 oz kite (in bits this past 18 months) which pointed
up to 60 degrees should have had a part to play there. A place in the top three
was well within our grasp: all we had to do was hang in there from the top of
the Kilbrannan sound onwards. We threw it away through poor preparation. The release
strings on the halyard and spinny shackles have caused problems before and should
have been removed at the start of the season. Once we had a problem, we had no
facility for going aloft without abandoning the helm (Andy has come up an idea
for single handed mast climbing from his rock climbing past which will be implemented
forthwith). The tear across the luff tape on the No 3 was not there before the
race. Something unprotected on the foredeck cut it, or it's simply not up to the
job; for sure, any aerodynamic advantages offered by the Tuff-Luff were wiped
out many times over by sail jams on this occasion. The light kite, as noted, currently
in kit form, was missed briefly (but we'd lost the halyard by then anyway). A
knock-on effect of these foul-ups was that, later in the race, we got into different
weather from the leading group: whether this will work for or against you is as
certain as the toss of a coin, and with just as little to do with racing. We regard
this as one of our targeted main events, along with the offshore race in the Scottish
and the Peaks Race, and this was a perfect opportunity wasted. We got what we
deserved.
The boat didn't.
Phew! That's better.
Postscript Congratulations to Hot'nTot's twin, Lindisfarne II, on a convincing
win in the Two-Handed short course race.