Well Mat and I turned up with out Formula boards and did the Round Raymond Island
Race on Saturday. I am very pleased that I did. I had a huge amount of fun, although it was pretty scary fun at times.
After the race I felt elated. Somewhat in the same way as it feels great when you stop hitting your head against a brick wall!
The thing that made it scary and exciting was the fact that it was blowing a gale. But we were very unsure about the actual wind strength before the start. The foreshore at Paynesville is in a bay sheltered from the Easterly by the island. Looking straight out through the entrance of the bay to the south we could see it was windy with whitecaps and yachts were leaning over at 45 degrees, but exactly how windy was the subject of much speculation. The local sailors were guessing 18 knots but none of them had been out yet. The only Formula race I had been to previously was held in a steady 20 knots and the experienced racers insisted that they were ok on their smallest race sails: 9.8m! I found that incredible and decided to go with my 7.6m that time. On that occasion the 7.6m was fine on my GO 170 but I was blown off by the experienced sailors using 9.8's. With that in mind I rigged a KA Formula 9.8m for a test run on the Starboard Formula 186 out into the main lake. On launching I was immediately apprehensive as I was easily planing in the sheltered bay. As soon as I got past the point and copped the full force of the wind I knew it was impossible. I was not able to even sail upwind without being lifted and slammed and sailing back downwind was scary fast and out of control fully sheeted out!
I immediately returned to shore to contemplate a sail change. But what to use? It was clearly blowing well in excess of 20 knots and this is a long race!
I decided to go conservative. There were no sheep stations riding on the result and I just wanted to make it around so I rigged the 6.6m KA Koncept hoping I would not be too underpowered. Mat decided on his 7m sail, thinking his 5.8m Koncept would be too small.
When I got out to the start line it was total confusion for me. I could not work out the start flag for my division and there were trailer-sailers, cats, Flying 15 keelboats and Dinghies going in all directions. And I was still not feeling that comfortable at all with my sail choice. There was certainly no shortage of power! I saw the first division, the slowest dinghies start and I tried to watch for the cats and trailer-sailers that we were meant to start with. The Windsurfer OD's were starting last and we opted to start in another division so as not to interfere with their championship. Suddenly I noticed that some cats and trailer-sailers had crossed the line and were beating upwind. Bugger! I had missed the start! I crossed the line at least 3 minutes late and just ahead of the Windsurfer OD fleet.
The course took us up the southern side of the Island directly into the wind and 5 foot breaking swells. After one spill when I tacked too close to the shore and ran aground, I recovered and saw Mat a hundred meters upwind of me and one of the fast cats just upwind of him. I set off in pursuit fully powered to overpowered and struggling to keep the board from flying away off the top of the bigger waves. I found it helped to bear away across the biggest waves just a bit to stop the board being lifted so much and then pinch up the rest of the time. I think in normal conditions it is
faster to foot off the wind a bit and keep the speed up rather than pinch but if I did that I got up too much speed and flew off the waves out of control. I lost it a couple of times but luckily landed in the water-start position so I didn't lose too much time. After a while I looked around and was surprised to see that Mat was now downwind of me. I figured he must have had a few crashes as well. All I could see upwind of me was the Formula Cat half a Km ahead and a Flying 15 about 200m upwind. I could also see 2 Windsurfer OD's about half a Km behind and marveled at the skill of these 2 guys to get upwind in these conditions so fast on such primitive gear.
I concentrated on Flying 15 and gradually reeled it in. He was pointing about 5-10 degrees higher than me but I was gaining on boat speed. I caught them just before the Eastern end of the island and could still see the Formula cat ahead about the same distance as before. Now I had two big problems. The first was that I could not see the gate formed by the rescue launch and a buoy because the seas were so large. The second was that now I was running freer I was going too fast to maintain control. Twice I ran out 200m ahead of the Flying 15 and twice they gained it all back again when I launched at high speed over a big wave and crashed! After the second crash they were just ahead of my and by looking in the direction they were heading I could just see the turning launch. Now I was able to run square to the wind I was much more in control because I could stay in the relatively smooth troughs between the waves. I was quickly gaining on the cat as well and got a good sight on the next turning mark off the NE corner of the island. Once around that it was the start of the most scary but exhilarating ride I have ever had on a windsurfer! I was running at 150-160 degrees off the wind, back foot jammed firmly in the chicken strap, sail sheeted right out and feeling right on the razors edge of going over the front at very high speed. I remember suddenly realizing that I had forgotten to put my GPS on and feeling devastated because there is no doubt this was the fastest that I had ever gone on a Formula board, by a long way! It felt like I was about to break the sound barrier and I have no doubt I hit at least 30 knots. Doing 44 knots on the Sandy Point speed strip was a doodle compared with this! I fully expected the nose to catch on the back of a wave at any moment and catapult me into oblivion. But as I got further down in the lee of the island the waves became smaller and the wind eased marginally. By this time I was level with the Formula cat but too far inshore to make the last turning mark so I had to gybe back out into the lake. As I did I saw a passenger ferry coming down the lake to the same mark. I tried to gybe before I got caught up in its wake but didn't manage to avoid it and fell in again. By the time I sorted the rig out and water-started the cat was gone and I was heading for the straights between the island and the mainland. A quick glance back up the lake and I could not see any other sails within about 2 Kilometres. But as soon as I entered the straights I was becalmed. This was always going to be the biggest hurdle to circumnavigating the island on the Formula board. The straights are quite narrow with tall trees and buildings along the shore so I was slogging along at less than walking pace with almost no wind. After a few minutes I looked back and saw the Flying 15 cruising up behind me making really good boat speed. They quickly passed me and disappeared. I few minutes later I looked back to see the two leading Windsurfer One Design's enter the straights about 1km behind me. I was very surprised to see them also gaining on me very quickly. They were gliding along in the very light gusty breeze at a very good speed. By the middle of the straights they had caught me and glided past. Now we were in a slightly wider part of the channel I was able to briefly plane a few times so I kept up to them but they led me across the finish line.
I found out that two cats had beat me but I had not even seen the other one. That was because he had beat right across the lake to the lee shore on the first leg to take advantage of the smooth water. It was a longer route but he gained so much speed advantage from it he was 10 minutes ahead of the rest of us. I definitely filed that one away for future reference.
The highlights for me were the outstanding skills of the top Windsurfer One Design sailors
and the incredibly fast and scary speed run down the back of the Island. I will definitely be marking the Gippsland Lakes Yacht Club Easter Regatta and Round Raymond Island race on my calendar for next year!
I will be happy if the wind is not blowing 30 knots though!
We started in the lake and sailed Anti-clockwise to finish at the south end of the Straights in front of the Yacht club. The rumb line distance is about 17kms but of course everyone sailed considerably further than that. The best official record is 55 mins set by Gary Maskell on his Catarmaran but it is highly likely that windsurfers did it faster during the heyday of the Flatwater Classic in the 1980s. Unfortunately, no records were kept during this period.
This years winning time was 65 minutes by a Paper Tiger Cat. The fastest windsurfers this year came in at around 79 mins in a race that saw a solid 30 knots of Easterly wind and 5 foot waves on most of the course.
mathew
> 9 months ago, 17 Mar 2008
