Quokka-Fandango (First 40.7) |
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RORC De Guingand Bowl,
18 May
With a light breeze forecast the Race
Officers decided to set the shorter of the two course options
at 83 miles. After a 20-minute delay to allow a large ship to
clear the start area, IRC 0 got off to a flying start at 1950.
Unfortunately for a few the start was just too good as the second
gun indicated that at least one boat was over the line. In fact
seven boats were early of which five returned to start correctly.
For the race I sailed aboard David Scanlan's First 40.7 which
has been renamed Quokka-Fandango for the RORC Offshore Series
and is being co skippered by David and RORC Commodore Peter
Rutter. In Class 1 we had a good start to leeward and inshore
of most of the fleet, a couple of hundred yards off the Squadron
flying our Checkmate Kevlar Main and Light No.1 Genoa.
After an initial close battle with Paul King's Prima 38 Serendip,
on the long fetch to the Needles Fairway buoy we managed to
get ahead of our fleet and even got to overtake some of Class
0. We set the 1/2oz spinnaker at the Fairway buoy and this was
to be up all the way until the finish with the exception of
about 20 minutes just before Le Gravendest off St.Vaast.
As we approached Barfleur early on Saturday morning the wind
began to die and the fleet compressed. After a close race we
were piped by under a minute on corrected into second place
in IRC 1 by lower rating sister-ship Fastwave but we were very
pleased with our performance in our first Offshore of the year.
As the lock was about to close we turned around immediately
after the finish line and headed straight home and were back
by 9.15pm.
Roger Cerrato, Banks Sails, onboard Quokka-Fandango.
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