Race Day

It felt breezy in the morning - we could hear the wind whistling. That boded well for the race but it was different by the afternoon.

We got the bunting down and tried to decide what to do with Worm. In the end we ended up towing her the whole day.

I also needed to greet our extra crew coming over on the water taxi. Kevin, NW area president and two locals were joining. The locals proved additions to the crews for our two Itchen Ferries - Onward of Ito and Ferryman.

Dismantling the rafts of gaffers was a complicated engineering process but we all got out. Going to the foredeck revealed our port bulwark had been pulled away from the stem post and the pin rail was also damaged.

I banged it back in with the hammer and lashed everything tight with rope. It will be fine until we get home. I just hope the stem post isn’t getting soft.

Out on the water we couldn’t find the race channel M2/P4 on either our fixed or handheld radios.

Then Derek, the OSC commodore got me on the WhatsApp.  We had wind but none outside the bay. Neither planned course was going to work.

We swiftly came up with a new one. Down Kerrera Sound to Little Horseshoe Bay and back.

We agreed to change the working channel to 8 as it seemed we weren’t the only ones without M2.

I put out an announcement on 16 ‘Old Gaffers Fleet go Channel 8 and report in’.

It worked. Only a couple of boats missed the call and we managed to get the message to them and started the race.

It was light airs but most boats had a good race with some close quarters polite jostling at the turning mark.

A fine evening with BBQ, highland piping and accordion playing by the OSC youth finished the evening off. Alison did the prizes for the race and I did a briefing for the parade of sail. A fine evening.

Back on Kerrera we got chatting on Letty and had a great chat with Keith our chef from Friday night and owner with his partner Annie of a gaffer of his own. A Colin Archer, currently in Bristol.

Then a last dram on board Sagan with Robert while Lorna and Alison had tea on Robinetta and the day was over.

Two down, one to go.