{The first day of the Cumbraes regatta was somewhat reminiscent of 2002 featuring
a long postponement then only one race. With not very much wind which couldn't
make up its mind which way to blow, the start line was a bit odd necessitating
a port hand crossing and we were somewhat unnerved to see the pin end being lifted
and dragged to a new position 2 minutes before our start. A light breeze of around
6-8 kn eventually filled in generally from the SW and the race proceeded. The
entry list was fair although I thought down on previous years and it was good
to see a fair turnout of Sigma 33s back in action again. IRC 1 had a good entry,
mainly of fairly newish 40plus footers while the next biggest class CYCA 3 had
a wide handicap spread. The light winds gave us on Troy the conditions we need
to do well on our handicap and this we were certainly doing, hanging in close
to Scanne's tail wih Swedish Lady well ahead. It all came apart for us when we
had an incident involving contact with Scanne at the leeward mark on the second
round and this subsequently went to protest which resulted in DSQ for Troy. We
managed to sail a good third beat, pulling back a lot on Swedish Lady and getting
well past Scanne by the time we crossed the finsih line expecting some kind of
sound signal. None was forthcoming and the explanation was that the 2 hour time
limit had been exceeded and that the previous round's time were to count. Those
of us who had reeled in distance on the last round were naturally disappointed
by this (we would have been first) but as stated, the protest put paid to Troy's
chances anyway. The red Impala, Orrkid sailed an excellent race, well in contention
and we were only able to shake her off by the slimmest of margins.
The full results should be available on the Largs
SC webpage (why do they have that annoying seagull noise) . I have no pictures
from Saturday. Saturday evening at the marina seemed relatively quiet (a far cry
fromn the old days with the marquee) and I have no idea if the ceilidh band eventually
showed up at the sailing club.
Sunday's round the island race started on time again in a very light breeze which
soon built to a satisfying 14kn or so from the nnw.. The course was the anticlockwise
route round the big cumbrae only. With a heavily skewed start line most starters
were able to scrape acoss n starboard and headed straight for the Cumbrae shore.
The Class 1s and Sigmas stayed fairly close together but large gaps soon opened
up in Class 3 by the time we were reaching across the north end of the island
with Swedish Lady and Scanne pulling well ahead n the freshening breeze. A healthy
run down the back followed (above) and spinnakers were dropped to go go through
the Tan. The wind held up well for the second beat but lightened up a lot for
the second run and then failed altogether with a huge hole off the Hunterston
corner of the island. With the ebb pulling motionless boats in the direction of
Arran some anchoring was observed.
It was hugely frustrating as the whole fleet bunched up. Some individuals went
in very close indeed to the Cumbrae shore with, I'm sure, more than one instance
of grounding. We thought that even if a little wind were to arrive before the
time limit the result would be little more than a handicap list so with the time
limit but no wind approaching we decided to peel to the Yanmar as did several
others including a handful from the Sigma class. This of course meant a regatta
total of nil points for Troy. I think that some of class 3 made it over the line
with a few minutes to spare but others did not. At time of writing I have not
seen the results. It was a most disappointing conclusion to what had hitherto
been a very good race.
