Douarnenez day 3, dragging anchors and racing

I woke at 05:00, feeling uneasy. It was only half an hour until high water, and when we anchored last night the depth gauge was not working. The charts said we were in 2 m of water, which meant 7m at high water, but we had no easy way to check. I went into the cockpit to have a look and we were definitely closer to one of the yachts, Kett of Littlehampton. Julian let out some more chain and and we checked our position on the chartplotter. It looked as though we were still in place, so we went back to bed.

We went ashore to shop and for the race briefing. I had a coffee and sat on the sea wall waiting for the briefing, and Julian glanced over and saw that Robinetta was now almost touching Kett. Abandoning the race briefing we headed back to Robinetta via the taxi boats as quickly as we could.

The moorings supervisor boat was alongside Robinetta, trying to hold her off Kett, and we jumped on board and got the engine on, then motored clear.  Looking at the chart plotter we were pretty sure that it was Kett that was dragging her anchor, not us, but our bowsprit had shattered Kett’s stern light whoever was at fault.


Julian pulled up the anchor, and we headed off to re-anchor. It was half eleven by now, and we had missed the race briefing, so I rowed Julian back over to Kett to see if he could help sort the stern light. I then rowed back to Robinetta and stayed on anchor watch. We had not had time to check the anchor was holding before leaving her so it seemed stupid to abandon her. Julian got a taxi boat then walked to the chandlers in Treboul to buy a new light. The man off Kett went with him. It turned out that the skipper was in hospital in Douarnenez, and having had a little time to think he realised the dragging might not have been our fault....

I started preparing Robinetta for the race. Julian had handed in the form saying we intended to join in last night, but we knew very little about it. Julian phoned, telling me that the chandlers had closed for lunch, and asked me to talk to the organisers to find out details, so I did. It turned out that the start had been moved forward, to 13:30. I watched Sheerwater sail past Robinetta’s stern as I waited anxiously for Julian’s return.

Sheerwater

Julian appeared in a taxi boat at 13:15. By then I already had the engine on and was hauling up the anchor. As race starts go we have had better, but helped by the fact that they moved the start even earlier on the fly, so we still had the engine on and the main only half raised when the three minute gun went.

We crossed the line last, and stayed there. This was not such a bad thing since we did not know what the course was.... We had up the no 1 jib and needed it, since the wind was light close in, although better by the turning buoy. It rained quite hard for about ten minutes, making us use our oily jackets for the first time in a while.

The finish was interesting to say the least. It looked as though everything had been moved earlier to make time for Greyhound and Recouverance to have a mock battle right by the finish line. They are BIG boats, sailing at close quarters and doing a public demonstration, and were not going to get out of the way of the last boat in a little boat race.... We avoided Greyhound by putting in an extra tack, but had to start the engine to get out of Recouverance’s way.

Once the race was over we headed back to the moorings. It was nearly 15:00, and we were starving! Luckily our initial mooring was free again, so we picked it up and had lunch in the cockpit before anything else. Julian felt really tired after the disturbed night and active morning, so he had a sleep while I got the sails sorted and tidied up the boat.