Let me set the scene for you. Throughout
my preparations, I had flat water and 4 Beaufort maximum. Now, the forecast for the actual regatta was saying 6-7 Beaufort. As I woke up on Saturday morning, I had butterflies in
my stomach. But at 9h00 there was rain and hardly any wind. So we all started
under full sails – I had even pre-rigged the big spi. By the time we reached
Versoix, it was a solid force 5 and getting stronger. As we reached le Grand Lac, we
had gusts of 30 knots. By then, most of us reefed – or abandoned.
In total, out of 92 boats on the starting
line, 52 abandoned. Here are the results in the Surprise class:
As you can see, Mic Mac finished 12th out of 24
boats that started. Interestingly, I could see 8 more Surprises registered for the race – I wonder if they decided not to come because of the forecast.
Finishing as the 12th Surprise is way above my
original expectations, but now of course I wish I had come higher
among those who actually finished. A couple of places better was within my
reach: already one place I lost because hoisting the spi too early on the way
back – and being overtaken as I was struggling with it. I will not go through the
whole race now (you can – if you want - by replaying Mic Mac’s GPS track in
Google Earth), but here are my personal highlight moments:
- Working on the foredeck to change the head sail;
- Seeing 14 knots of speed on the GPS while surfing under spinnaker on the way back.
On the other hand, the worst moment was an uncontrolled gybe as a result of getting the spi wrapped around the forestay at night – this one is
really not to be repeated.
Overall, feeling in control of the boat in 30 knots of
wind and alone was a great experience. With all that I have learnt, I think I am now finally
ready for this Translemanique race - some time in the future, maybe? Even though it
will not be easy to repeat this year’s result…
Thanks for reading!
Michał
