Another long coastal race with JOG, this time heading out to the east from the start line at Gurnard to the Owers mark off Selsey Bill before returning to the Solent, a round trip of 48 miles.
With a westerly, it would be a downwind benefit for J105s on the outbound leg, with the prospect of an upwind slog on the return with a struggle to sail to our handicap. Mostly Harmless led the race to the Owers mark, arriving with a lead of 4 or 5 minutes over the fully crewed J109 Just So. With the breeze at 16 knots, a gust caught the spinnaker during the drop and it went in the water, allowing several boats to catch up and round ahead while we were trawling. But despite sailing double handed against crews of five in our closest rivals on the beat back to Gurnard, we managed the windshifts well and overhauled all but Just So (which was 15 minutes ahead by the finish) to finish second on the water and on handicap.
The soaking wet spinnaker removed any choice about joining Sunday’s Royal Southampton YC’s doubled handed race out to the the West Princessa mark to the south east of the Isle of Wight as it needed to flying to get it dry! The conditions at 10 o’clock were not promising: all the forecasts suggested a very light breeze. And so it turned out. So we hoisted the spinnaker to dry it out and, with virtually no wind, decided to retire rather than face a few hours drifting until the wind filled in. This turned to be a good decision: all but two of the fleet eventually retired too.