St Helena Cup 2021

I competed in my first St Helena Cup last weekend on my boat, Bolero. What a ride! Satisfied with our 12th place finish, out of 18 in our class (Division 2 - Cruising Boats and Trailer-Sailers). Overall, there were 105 (?) entries in 3 Divisions. The start line for Div 1 was quite a sight.

I was a late entry, having been on an extended road trip and Charter Boat in the Whitsundays. I had also booked the first weeks in October on leave, so I could mess about on my boat. So, I entered on Monday. The next few days were all about registration and getting the Cat 5 Safety Audit. I made a couple of minor adjustments to Bolero (e.g. tie-downs for the washboards), but the trickiest thing was restocking the First Aid Kit with CPR face masks or shields.

I managed to find one person for a crew. She had only been sailing for 12 weeks, and had never steered a boat before our first "practice" session - the WAGS race on the Wednesday before. As I had only flown a spinnaker once before, I decided to stick to main and a roller-reef foresail. Other than some early mistakes (putting the tiller the wrong way), my helm did well. I think a good helm can not only manoeuvre the boat in tacks and jybes, but also has the patience to stay focussed on the foresail luff for extended periods of time, when working upwind.

The Saturday race had light winds. Having not raced seriously before, neither of us were familiar with the starting signals, so when the first horn went off at 1025, we thought that was the start. Had to claw our way back over the start line for the "real start", but managed to avoid a recall. We lost a lot of ground on the downwind legs when most other boats put up their spinnakers.

The Sunday race had fresher winds, about 9 knots at the start and building to 18 knots. I changed my mind on a reef, and put up all of the main and foresail, which is more than I'd put up for cruising. This time, we got a good start, and got to the right place on the start line at the right time. There was some heavy traffic rounding Mark D, which stopped us tacking to Starboard, and we lost some ground as we waited for a gap in the Div 1 boats (they were headed to a different mark on a longer course). The upwind leg, against the tide, was hard work. I took the helm on the upwind leg, because Bolero put on a heavy weather-helm. I'm not sure I got the trim right, but decided to dig in and stick with it until we could bear away at the next mark, rather than tinker with something and get into trouble. We were screaming along (relative to my normal day-sailing pace) at 6.5 to 7.5 knots. We messed up the final tack next to the club boat at the finish and, literally, fell over the line.

Debrief:

What did we set out to do?
Compete in the St Helena Cup and not hit anyone. Try not to come last.

What actually happened?
We competed in the St Helena Cup and did not hit anyone. We did not come last. Job done!

What could we do better next time?
More than 2 persons on board and capability to raise the spinnaker. Understand the starting sequence. I had bought a poster on Thursday explaining the flags and signals, and made sense of it after Saturday's race.

What went well?
We had fun and learned a lot. I reckon my novice helm did very well. With a little more experience, she would make a good helms-person.

Also, plotting the course on paper and estimating the arrival times at the marks was a good strategy, because I had a quick reference on what to do and where to head next. I have limited electronic aids, in any case (watch, depth sounder, phone, and a chart plotter that is difficult to read in direct sunlight). It also allowed me to work through wind and tide. If you have a plan, you can change it easily, but it you don't, you'll need to work hard to make one, when you are thinking of a thousand other things at the time. Minor gloat - On Saturday I estimated our finish time at 14:40, and we got there at about 14:48. On Sunday, I estimated our finish at 13:50, but we were much quicker than expected, getting there at about 12:52.

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Achernar said..
What actually happened?
We competed in the St Helena Cup and did not hit anyone. We did not come last. Job done!

"I love it when a plan comes together" - That was the A-team I think?
Be careful, very addictive. I think it's not the competition but really learning how to make your boat go in varied conditions that makes that sort of racing very satisfying.
Love to escape Victoria and help with your spinnaker work.

great conditions both days we had an ordinary start but right end of the line saturday and did ok on measurement but treated harshly by performance handicap sunday 2 up with my son awesome start but wrong side of the course upwind so not such a good result great sail back to sandgate afterwards with 25 knots best part of the weekend
and no hangover after saturday night a big change