After a manic mission from Somerset; leaving work at midday, dropping dogs off,getting stuck in traffic and picking the boat up from HYS, we hit the line on the gunand were off for the last offshore race of the season.Light winds had long been forecast for the race so we knew that a good strategy was going to be necessary to secure another win in the 2-handed class. A patchy seabreeze held as we sailed east out of the Solent with the spinnaker up. As we approached Bembridge Ledge buoy we managed to fight off an attack from Diablo-J.Rounding the mark just ahead of Diablo-J, we dropped our kite and took some heighttowards the Isle of Wight. The fleet seemed to divide into two; those that headed westof the rhum line towards the Island and those that stuck closer to the direct route.
We managed to stay in the sea breeze for a while longer than the rhum line group andkept moving. As the sea breeze died we drifted west on the tide for a while whilst the gradient northerly re-established itself. However, we rarely stopped and managed tomake slow but reasonably progress towards Cherbourg and overtake some of the boats around us. It was wonderful night for offshore sailing; slipping through theinky waters under a carpet of stars. I tried to enjoy every second of it whilst also trying to keep focused on the race, which was hard especially as I grew more tired as the night wore on.
The north easterly wind held pretty much all the way to the finish albeit with somerather light patches and some tricky tidal currents. Somehow we got the maths correctand held a steady course all the way to the finish. What struck us most about the First34.7 in this race was her quick acceleration, in the smallest of puffs we were offupwind and downwind. Crossing the finish line at Cherbourg we thought we had done well as there were some much larger boats finishing after us, however, we had notseen any of the other 2-handed boats on the way over. Had they pipped us to the post? Rather cheekily, I asked the finishing boat how many 2-handers had finished when theanswer came back as none, a cheer went up from Jos. We had won!
One of our goals this season was to prove the First 34.7 as a competitive option forthe ever growing 2-handed class and I feel on reflection we have. Out of the 3offshore races we started, we got 3 wins. Even more impressively we had excellent results against the fully crewed boats too, including a 4th and a 2nd Overall. Not only is she fast in all conditions, she’s also very comfortable, a definite improvement on theMini!
