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Anarchists in Paradise
I was kindly invited by Anarchist Tuf-Luf, AKA Bill, to come down from Hong Kong and compete on his Sydney 40, Team F5 Foxy Lady, which he had delivered from Singapore. As well as a couple of other Anarchists the crew was made up of a mish mash of people who have sailed with Bill before and a couple who had sailed in Samui before. We had a good mix of nationalities from Canada, Holland, England, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and one we weren’t sure about. Fortunately we all spoke English, though with a few accents eh mates. One of our competitors had more issues with Chinese, English and Tagalog being spoken, some of whom had no communications skills in the other languages with the driver and tactician needing a translator. (How do you translate ‘fly the cloth’?) By late Saturday all the crew had arrived and an early breakfast with a practice sail to follow was called for. We went out mid-morning after a brief rain squall passed us and sailed around in around 8 knots of wind, a good thing as that was probably the average for the regatta once you took the highs of 45 knots and lows of 0 knots into consideration. With me as the boat virgin and some of the other crew doing new positions we slipped into a routine very quickly and had no real dramas at any stages. We were feeling confident so headed back to shore for a burger and a case of Heineken (each). On getting to shore I started to learn some of the names of the other crew as well as something about each of their characters. I also learnt not to pull Bill’s finger when the waitresses weren’t looking. After a few drinks in the evening it was off to bed for some rest before what promised to be a long, hot week against some very competitive boats in what has always proved testing conditions in the last 4 years I have done the regatta. After weighing the merits of the boats in our class, we had decided that our biggest threat came from the slightly longer, slightly faster Corby 41.5, Hummingbird, as we expected many of the points to be had during the windward/leewards. The RP75, Jelik, of Frank Pong has done Samui a couple of times but generally hasn’t had the chance to stretch her legs enough on the courses and Ffree Fire, the ULDB74, needed longer courses and more wind to get it on. The race started on time and we got across cleanly in a good position with winds blowing around 10 knots. We got to the first mark after 1.5nm ahead of Ffree Fire and in touch with Hummingbird- Jelik had started her horizon job! Once past the mark we watched all 3 other boats in our class head inshore and take huge lifts. Our tactician called more consistent wind further out and when we came out at the end, after an hour and a half we were 2nd in the water astern of Jelik and ahead of the X-612, Warwick 19.5, Lyons 49, Hummingbird and Ffree Fire. Coming up to the turning mark, a small island, we saw the visibility drop to nothing and a huge squall bearing down on us. By this time Hummingbird had started to get ahead using her waterlength and went into the squall with her number 1 up which left us no choice but to carry ours in. Once into the squall winds were clocked at well over 30 knots so the call was made to drop the foresail and get the number 4 on deck. When the squall hit we were headed by 40 degrees so had to tack into the island which was to port so poor old Bill was at the back watching the wind speed, wind direction and water depth whilst on his knees praying that his number 1 didn’t pop! Credit where credit’s due, the Quantum number one (light number 1 at that) held together and didn’t show any signs of damage. The squall eventually passed to reveal that Hummingbird had gained a little and had carried their heavy number 1 through the squall, a distinct benefit over the next 150 metres as the squall took all the wind with it and we had to rehoist to get round the island before hoisting a kite. It turned out that Jelik had clocked 45 knots at the mast and sailed at 23 knots of boat speed on white sails alone. After the island we bobbed around in zero wind with a row of donuts on the boat sped indicator for a good hour before a new breeze kicked in finally giving us a race to the mark. We had stayed fairly central to the course but Hummingbird had gone a bit further out sea towards what looked like a storm coming in and picked up the wind at the same time. We converged near the line but we beat them over by a few seconds, Ffree Fire a few minutes behind us. Jelik took the day, aided by the 45 knot squall when we were impeded, but a result’s a result and it was all good racing. The second day was the day we had to really do well as 2 windward leewards were down and this was our territory! The anchor was lifted at 9.30 and thanks to a little help from Rage Against the Machine we were the Bulls on Parade and we were ready for a bit of Killing in the Name of Foxy Lady by the gun at 10.30. The wind god’s were a bit unfair to us as the wind was a little strong for us and we got rolled by some of the bigger boats and had to deal with a lot of dirty air for the first 10 minutes. We got some space so headed out for some clean air and made up some ground thanks to good tactics, good driving and some wicked fast tacks. We hit the top mark just behind Ffree Fire and Humingbird but thanks to some great wind behind us, 25 knots I think it got up to, we flew down the course with the symmetric kite up and took our place back from Hummingbird and kept up with Ffree Fire who needs more room to get her speed up. The wind dropped a little on the upwind but Hummingbird still managed to get back in front, but not for long as we reeled them back in downwind as we went left and they went right. The final upwind leg was a tight one but we got sailed over in a show of very bad sportsmanship by one of the very bib premiere cruising class boats who wasn’t in the race at all and we sat to leeward with our gas masks on trying to get speed back on. We reeled Hummingbird in again as they didn’t cover us on the way down and we went left again when they went right. It was very unfortunate that we lost the race by a minute to Jelik, probably the exact amount of time we lost in the wind shadow of the behemoth. I hope they spilled their G&T’s at least! The second race started in slightly dieing winds on the same course, 3 W/L’s but the racing was just as tight. No major dramas in the race but due the wind tailing off Jelik got another bullet to match his other 2. Frank was setting himself up perfectly for a whitewash of the regatta and we could do nothing but watch him do it- the downside of racing handicap with a 40’er and a 75’er! Hummingbird took another 3rd which left Ffree Fire in 4th and a very consistent score sheet for the fleet! Worth noting that Strewth, the Lyons 49 in Premiere Cruising, was also stacking up a row of bullets. There was much celebrating with beer, food and curry slushies at the race HQ as we were very happy with the outcome of the day and the team was coming together very well not only during the gybes in 25 knots which are always a worry, but also when it all goes to shit and you’re going backwards in the tide. After race HQ the owner of Tradewinds, the beachfront resort we were staying in, put on a few free kegs of beer and a BBQ of epic proportions in which to drown our sorrows at not having a bullet yet! This made for sore heads the next day, but not to worry as it was time for a lie in and recuperate from a lot of hard sailing and no small amount of beer and rum. The lay day itseld saw the Foxy lady crew disperse around the island on various quests, from exploring other villages to going to Tesco’s to do some shopping! That evening was a great party on the beach, again hosted by Land Rover, which led to much merriment, nipple wrenching and skinny dipping! A rather late night saw some rough heads at breakfast the next morning at 8am, but in true regatta fashion we were set to pounce once we were in the 5 minutes and just as well as we had a very close start with the kite up, with about 6 inches to spare between the committee boat and us! Who says only the 20’ers have close starts?! We followed a similar course to the first day but with a total wind-swing we were going down with kites up and, as the wind was dropping, all classes except Racing 1 were shortened. We were a bit disappointed that we were sent out for a few more miles, but when you are a 40’er racing with 70+’ers that is the straw you pull. So we put our heads down and concentrated in the flukey conditions we had. Jelik became the first victim of the dead wind as she fell out of the front first and parked up on a drifter which took her past the coral reef which was the top mark. Hummingbird took a dive into shore which paid for her and she hit the reef first and got round with the last gasp of pressure. We followed Ffree Fire into the reef and thought we were following her line until we got to 50cm under the keel and backed the kite to push the boat back out a bit. This was when the wind died completely and we took ages to get past the reef and could only watch as Hummingbird sailed off into what became an almost 2 mile lead. Just as we thought it was over and the fat lady was going to start singing, she went back to bed as we saw a few zephyrs flicking across the water behind us. The call to action had arrived and we gently hoisted the VMG kite just as we small pressure line rolled over us. It did more for morale than boat speed but we started moving none the less, the best thing was that it was only us and Ffree Fire who had the wind and we had the advantage of being half their weight. Hummingbird went from being a small speck on the horizon to a slightly larger speck on the horizon and we were pumped. All eyes were on the breeze lines and not a single one went past us a virgin. As we approached Hummingbird they started picking up some wind but it was a slightly different angle and they had to drop their VMG and hoist a light #1- advantage Foxy Lady! It is surprising that they didn’t go a little faster as the amount of air produced from the crew fuming away and their heads constantly turning must have created some wind in the sails! As we got to the line Hummingbird crossed 40 seconds or so ahead of us after 5 hours of sailing. They took line honours as Jelik and Ffree Fire were still quite a way behind, but that was small consolation to them as they were headed for line honours and their first bullet. As it was, we took our first bullet of the regatta and beat Jelik by over an hour and a half on corrected time. The beer tasted sweeter and the burger tasted better after that win and the celebrations went on fairly late again that night. Although all the results were in the bag in our division- we could have drawn level with Jelik but would have lost on countback- all the boats showed up for the last day of a short windward/leeward course but it was not to be as the wind didn’t fill in until the AP over A went up and we were heading in! Foxy Lady won the race to the beach and a round of Heinekens were ordered! It’s always a downer when the last race of a regatta is cancelled but we got to look back on a great week of racing, the owner was happy with the result, there were no breakages on the boat and only one injury (and that was done in the shitter on shore!). Cheers to Bill for taking a punt on me, who he has never met before except through SA, trimming kite. He has a great crew on board and one of them said that they have never seen him sail as well as he did on the last day and I’m glad I was part of that. Now all that’s left is to persuade the wife that I have no idea where the receipt for the Lovely Lady Lucky Lounge came from! 06/07/06 |
Firstly, apologies for not living up to our promise of posting up
to date updates everyday but between long days on the water,
bad web connections and enough Heineken to sink a canoe, it just never
got done. I will try and make amends below.