Sailing - Brian - Petersburg OEC
Today was 6*C, Wind F1 - 2. Sunny blue skies.
- Today I wanted to do a bit of rudderless sailing and also do some more work with the spinnaker.
When we arrived at petersburg today, we were yet again greeted with more than disappointing sailing conditions! Brian introduced us to a guy called Brendan from GMIT Letterfrack who would be sailing with us today and we went inside to have tea and discuss our options for the day. Brian suggested that we rig up some boats and go out on the lake even though it was a force 1! Somehow, while we were drinking our tea, the conversation came round to dinghy racing and then Brian suggested we rig up the 3 toppers and a pico and go racing around a course for the morning! He did a quick explanation about racing, the rules, where you want to be when the buzzer goes and that you really want to have the wind on your starboard so that you have right of way over others. It sounded like great craic so we went to rig up the boats, we decided to rig up 2 Vibes as well because we were going to use them for the afternoon session.
So there was Emmet, Fionan and myself and 6 dinghies rigged up! Sure you can never have too many boats!
We went to get changed and everybody met down at the lake, Brian went to get the power boat from the orchard side and met us back round at the beach.
We had an onshore wind so we all had to decide the best place to launch our dinghies and the best way to get up on to the course while Brian went and set out the buoys for the race.
I decided to launch my dinghy from the right hand side of the lake and then tack across to get up to the start line. It was a very slow process to get all the boats on to the course because of the lack of wind but eventually we were all moored up next to the power boat and Brian went through the course with us so that we all knew where we had to go.
We then all started going up and down along the start line and Brian started the count down timer from 3minutes. After a few tacks up and down, I knew where and when I needed to be tacking to get up to the start line with the wind on my starboard side for the start buzzer. I worked out if I sailed away from the line 30seconds it was taking me about 30 seconds to get back up close to the line, so when Brian called out 1 minute to go, I made sure I was just leaving the start line. I sailed away from the start line for 30 seconds, then tacked and sailed back towards the line, it was perfect timing and I went over the start line right at the buzzer!
It was great craic everybody going around the course at a snails pace because of the severe lack of wind, but still being really competitive and trying to get ahead of each other by tiller wagging! I had different tactics to the rest of the lads, the all decided to go on a beam reach across and then tack and come back across to tack again and go around the buoy. But I got a bit stuck behind the lads and I wasn't catching any wind where I was positioned (and there wasn't a lot of it to go around)! So I decided to tack as soon as I was over the start line and past the power boat. This took me in the complete opposite direction to the lads but I was beating up wind and had calculated it that I would just have to jibe once to make it around the 1st buoy. It was perfect and I was in first place for a while, but then I got a pocket of no wind just before the second buoy and Emmet over took me! So I decided to sail just inside him so that if I picked up any speed I would steal his wind and I would also have right of way as we approached the 3rd buoy!
It was great craic and I stole Emmet's wind but he soon got back ahead of me and I ended up going over the line 2nd. It took us 20minutes to complete the race without any wind! haha!
It was cool because we had never raced before and you have to come up with ways of getting ahead of the others, making sure the trim of your sails and weight in the boat is perfect and you also have to think about who has right of way.
I got squeezed out by Brendan at the start line. We both had the wind on our starboard side and he was on the outside of me but just ahead of me so he had right of way. This meant that I had to go around behind his boat to cross the start line. But I didn't realise until it was too late and I got squeezed up against the power boat which gave me a penalty of 360. Which means I had to go around the course an extra lap! It was a good way to learn the rules of the road and we had good fun at the same time.
We raced a few times and then we came back in for lunch!
After lunch we took the vibes out. Unfortunately my sciatic nerve was giving me pain again so I went in the power boat for the start of this session. I didn't want to keep sailing and end up making it worse because last time I did that I couldn't sail for 2 weeks. So I used the time to log hours on the power boat. I also learnt a lot by observing what the boys were doing in the 2 vibes. It's amazing how much you notice from a distance and Brian was asking me questions the whole time about how the boys could improve speed, trim etc.
Emmet & Fionan had a vibe each and once we got out of the bay, we were getting gusts of F2 winds and they both managed to fly the spinnaker on their own.
They sailed around for a bit with the spinnaker and then the wind just died, so we helped them to get the spinnakers down and Brian towed them in to the bay where they did a bit of rudderless sailing.
They had to shift their weight around the boat to tack and jibe and keep control without the rudder and do a circle around the powerboat. They did really well and were in total control of the boats.
I was really frustrated that I couldn't have a go, but I knew I had to look after my back.
Environmental Interest of the day:
When I was in the power boat with Brian today he was telling me about all the rocks across the lake, he said that the lake is absolutely polluted with rocks just below the surface of the water. This means you have to be really careful when power boating because you could destroy the RIB by hitting a rock at speed.
He also told me that the islands on the lake used to be inhabited. Red island used to have a farm on it, another island had a church on it and people used to live on others.
Follow this link to read more about the islands of lough corrib:
http://www.derryquaylodge.ie/corrib-tours
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