Scottish Series 25th-30 May 2000
You can read the press reports on the CCC site www.clyde.org and there are some great pictures on
Ron Cowan's photography site .
Crew on Troy at Scottish - Left to R : Andrew Leslie, Bill Etherington, John Scott, Maz Oliver. (Anne had to leave the day before and Chas was wielding the camera). Picture processed by 'Klick' - quality pure rubbish- not recommended.
The story from Troy is of a most enjoyable series.
It started badly for us when Russell (bowman) phoned to cancel while I was driving down to the marina on the Thursday afternoon before the start. As, due to a previous late cancellation, we had only 4 and now 3 for the passage race this presented something of a problem. Last minute desperate phonecalls were to no avail and Maz, Andew and myself headed Gourock. It was quite gusty around the start line so we opted for the No 3, had a good start and headed off uneventfully on the long fetch to Pladda. We seemed to be doing reasonably well, all things considered but our worst mistake was probably hanging on to the No3 for too long. A bare headed change to the No2 in difficult circumstances lost us a lot of time and by the time the light came back as we passed Pladda, changing up to the No1, it became obvious that there were a lot of boats we would have liked to have been with parked up ahead of us at Otterard Rock. We fell into that hole shortly before the wind came back and after fairly brief period of faffing around managed to get under way again with the spinnaker up. We did pretty well after that, hanging in with a lot of Class 3 boats and leaving our most feared rivals, Crusader, and Cara of Kip apparently for dead, miles behind.
Rounding the Skipness corner into Loch Fyne all seemed to be going well but as we made our way across to the Portavadie side we were horrified to find all the boats we had left so far behind piling up alongside in their own wind. From a very congested rounding of the Portavadie mark began the inevitable 3 mile bash across the loch to the finish line. Cara and Crusader had got ahead at this point and while we pulled back on Crusader, Cara went way off to the north and came back in ahead of us both. We were virtually level with Crusader when on our last tack for the line she threw a highly effective lee bow tack on us and stuffed us sufficiently to give her an 8 second lead over the line and second place putting Troy into third. This sprint from Portavadie which seems to happen every year messed up a number of classes including the Sigma 33s. Kevin Aitken in 'The White Tub' had been crossing gybes with us in the Kilbrannan sound and was clearly well down the Sigma pan but following the Portavadie reversal managed to pull a third in the Sigma fleet displacing numerous others.
On Saturday, Anne arrived boosting crew numbers to 4 but not before we had picked up Bill Etherington who was on a caravan holiday with his wife and 'just happened' to have his sailing gear with him. Bill, who as a racing and ocean sailing pensioner is extemely experienced and knew Troy of old from the east coast, made a vital contribution to the crew work and also to morale. We also had David Johnston from Skelmorlie for the day. As a self confessed cruising sailor it was possibly a bit more chaotic than he had anticipated but he coped well. A couple of 4ths in the light winds on Saturday were not too disgraceful and we began to get a feel for the form in the fleet. What was completely apparent was the performance of 'Eland', the Elan 333 demonstrator boat driven by Bill McKay with a crack crew. It must have been quite dull for them as they simply yachted off round the course on their own. By half way up the first beat they were well out of reach of us (and most of the bigger boats as well) in virtually every race.
In other classes our friends on 'Magnet' the MG335 in Class 3 were having a somewhat difficult time chasing some very fast Irish boats in the light winds after an encouraging offshore race. In Class 4 where Troy might have been it was business much as usual with Billy Whizz , Valhalla and Moonlighter featuring prominently. A new addition to that class was a Sunfast 32 called Dot Com. It was not clear to me if that was a semi professional entry but it sported expensive looking black sails and according to rumour was modified in th keel department. We were sorry to see our old sparring partners in the Mustang 'Rockin Horse' trailing so badly in a most uncharacteristic way.
On Sunday, John Scott arrived to keep the crew number at the optimum 6. It was light in the morning and we pulled a 2nd. In the afternoon race a sudden wind shift on the start line confused us somewhat and as the wind built the big Moodys pulled away leaving us with a pitiful 8th. Nevertheless by Sunday night we were placed second in class and were felling good. Monday dawned windy and with hindsight we probably overpowered ourselves going sideways too much as well as fast in the right direction. We didn't have those races well togeher and on the last beat while on port had a much too close crossing with Cara. A final foul up with loss of control and an involuntary tack placing most of Anne in the water - saved only by Bill - gave Cara a point more than us. A 7th and an 8th were the disappointing results pushing us down to 4th equal.
After a busy late night in the tent I thought it was unlikely that Maz or Andrew would be capable of very much on Tuesday. However Andrew astonishingly woke up of his own accord and Maz was prodded into life shortly before we cast off and soon pronounced herself in fine form. The last race gave us an excellent start and in a diminishing breeze we sailed our best. We caught the Moodys on the beats and lost them on the runs. It was close level racing between us and the Moody 336s and eventually on the last beat where it was all to play for they finally closed the line ahead of us giving Troy a 5th. It meant a rather disappointing 4th in class for us but the Moodys were being well sailed and Graham Goudie and his gang on Cara of Kip deserve our particular congratulation on their 3rd place.
all photos except the crew one copyright Ron Cowan and used with permission. See more at www.scottish-images.co.uk