Captain Passage Race

Sunday October 10, 2010

Only five boats turned out for this race which was a shame after the terrific attendance at the Round Prevost. It was all the more a pity because the rapidly appearing blue sky, sunshine and gusty wind created a perfect No Flying Sails opportunity on a fabulous fall October day. The skippers meeting was held at 10.00 am on the 10th day of the 10th month of the 10th year of this century where we confirmed the course of Batt Rock, U62 buoy, Wellbury Spar Buoy, back to Batt Rock and home.

All the contestants stormed over the line together hoisting their chutes in the backing North Westerly wind. Actually Vincent on VELICA didn't hoist a spinnaker because he didn't have one and didn't need one on his new, sleek and fast Alerion 33. Great gusts of wind that at least my crew thought were the last gasps of a strong wind suddenly overwhelmed the leading boats causing exciting round ups as they struggled to avoid broaches. CALIENTE, ELECTRA and IMP all enjoyed some dramatic moments with IMP ultimately paying the price of a blown chute which was quite spectacular. It was an old one so Greg didn't mind too much. Only Martin and his crew, Matt Law (skipper of ARNICA a regular Round Saltspring entrant form Calgary) controlled their flying sail to make KAY D plane at spectacular speed. ELECTRA changed sails, IMP salvaged her ribboned cloth, CALINTE took their chute down a little early while VELICA showed just how fast she can go with NFS.

At Batt Rock CALIENTE rounded followed by ELECTRA, KAY D, VELICA and IMP. The breeze decided to veer west and increase so the rush to U62 was downwind in a now flooding tide. The fleet remained fairly close with KAY D keeping up with all the bigger boats. The wind had now built to a serious blow to make ELECTRA struggle with reefing their main and changing down to a smaller headsail, Vincent, alone on VELICA, struggling to flatten his huge roach mainsail and IMP reefing too while KAY D happily luffed their main and kept flying along with their tiny 1978 jib going by everyone except CALINTE.

The last leg from Batt Rock to the finish was a hard beat with all the boats taking advantage of gusts that lifted them to the left. Tacks were still required and VELICA lost a little ground with Vincent admitting that he had never sailed so hard in his life. He was delighted to beat IMP over the line.

CALIENTE had shown great speed on the last leg and corrected out to win from a brilliantly sailed KAY D, a less than brilliant performance by ELECTRA, a superb single-handed effort on VELICA and a bruised and battered IMP. Hey, this was sailing at its best!

Roger Kibble on ELECTRA.