News

July 2007

Channel Race Report

Whew! That was tough. On sails and people. Little or no sleep, as we sailed the boat full-on all night.

We had an excellent start right on the gun. So did many of the other boats, so it took some excellent tactics and tacks, and a well-executed headsail change, to get us out of the Needles Channel; with Euphorix the only 40.7 ahead. The J122 Pen Azen had already started to cruise off into the distance.

So it was off to East Bramble with the No. 3, a ‘cracking sail’. By the time we got up there the tide had turned against us, but we squeezed a good rounding ahead of another 40.7 that had tacked in front of us, then an excellent kite set to head off to the RORC mark mid-channel. It was shy kite all the way, and we set the No. 1 up with a couple of miles to go to squeeze up to the mark.

Then we did a perfect set again, and proceeded on a screaming reach that had us barrelling on eastwards into the night with the odd roundup that had the owners worrying about their chequebooks. Surfing at night with poor visibility and rain and no external visual references to steer by is fun!? Again we doused the kite (desperately and with a halyard smoked through) and went bare-headed while we got the No. 3 up to reach up to the Ocean Safety buoy. We did a tack round rather than gybe without a kite, as the wind was howling by then.

For the next leg to Bembridge Ledge we started with the number 3 and the reefed main, but were flogging the latter so took down the headsail and sailed the rest of the leg bare-headed with the reefed main. We would have had to stop the boat to get the mainsail lowed and stowed, and it would have been horrific work. She points pretty well just under the main, so no problems.

In the Solent and in sight of the finish line we put the No. 3 up again then shook out the reef as the wind reduced to sensible speeds. It was then that we headed for the wrong finish line and added about two miles to our course.

We got home with no serious breakages and with only minor injuries and finished just 6 minutes behind the new canting keel super maxi Leopard 3 on corrected time in IRC overall.

Results:

In IRC1 we were 6^th on the water and 7^th on corrected time out of 30 starters.

In the IRC1 Progressive pointscore we are 7^th after the four drops, behind Pen Azen, Puma Logic, Meta Baron, Playing Around, Philosophy IV and Jaguar Logic.

June 2007 (3)

The Morgan Cup race from Cowes to St Helier (where we had a shower) was a difficult sail that included one dismasting (not us), 11 retirements from IRC1, 29 retirements from IRC Overall, and two mishaps with JEBA’s gear, the lesser of which was a broken genoa halyard.

We had a good start, and were fast on the two-sail reach to Bembridge ledge, where we were able to call water on Playing Around. The inshore tacking race down the eastern shore of the island went very well, and we came out of it ahead of the 40.7 competition – until the disintegrating radar reflector sliced the Number 1 genoa like a piece of paper. Bare-headed for a while, we got the Number 3 up, but until the breeze filled in a few hours later we had a power disadvantage that will have cost us an unknown distance. Luckily the breeze then increased to speeds at which we would have changed up anyway, in a race that was 90% to windward. However, . . . . .

We elected to stay on starboard tack across the channel, then headed some tide across the Cherbourg peninsula, and sailed some good lifts and knocks down to Casquets. On this section of the race our track on the plotter looks fantastic. Then, with the seas getting decidedly rough, we tacked in, which cost us some time as it took us out of favourable tides. Boats we had passed before getting to Casquets had stayed out and overtaken us by Les Hanois. We’ll remember that bit of geography.

A look at the result sheet is very pleasing for our amateur boat. The French J122 Ben Azen won (again). We had the First 40.7 Playing Around come in ahead of us, four professional Reflex 38s run by the Sailing Logic business, and the IMX 40 Meta Baron. Looking at the times, the loss of the sail cost us at least two places on elapsed time, maybe three. Twelve minutes would have given us two of the Reflex 38s, 21 minutes on corrected.

Our crew sailed the boat very well. We were fast and nothing serious broke. And we are improving. Thanks to the team:

George Jackson, Jon Waeland, Dave Beavan, Pete Graves, Tim Knight, Nick Aldworth, Ben and John

June 2007 (2)Round Eddystone Race – 230nm 

Our start was rubbish, and the incoming tide meant that 87 boats were battling up the 200 yard wide back eddy up the Gurnards shore. This was immense fun, and we entered into the challenge with spirit. Our tacking was frankly brilliant, and the track on the GPS plotter looks like an
America’s Cup race. We were about two thirds of the way through the fleet by the time we got to the needles.

We settled down to the gates at St Albans Head, Portland Bill and Start Point, with enough breeze and boatspeed to make gutsy and effective calls on all three. Great timing meant that had no delays at any of them. At
Portland we shot inside the race up close to the light in an increasing foul tide, and made it through comfortably. As a result, we rounded Eddystone about 13^th on the water, and third in the IRC1 fleet behind the very fast J122 Pen Azen and the First 40.7 Philosophie IV.

On the way home we got stuck inshore for a couple of hours at Start Point in a foul tide while the opposition stood out, so we undid some of the hard work, finishing 15^th in IRC1 and 35^th out of 87 in IRC Overall (32 boats failed to finish in the dying conditions at the end of the race).

We had a great time and the team worked well together. We were well-fed and had a clean boat.

Thanks from JEBA to all of the crew:    Andrew, George, Nick, Simon, Dave and Tim.

After two races we are lying 12^th in current standings for IRC1 and 29^th for IRC Overall.

June 2007

We had a good Myth of Malham. It was a fairly tough race, and we were met at the other end by 24 hours of gales, so didn’t depart Portrieux for home until 1600 on Monday, arriving yesterday afternoon. Lucy had to get back to work, so spent Monday on the ferry.

Crew were:      George Jackson, Claire & Dave Ayling, Naomi Moore, Elaine, Lucy, Ben and John.

We were 4^th in IRC1 out of 13 finishers, and 8^th in IRC overall (out of 41). Two 40.7s beat us home. However we know the mistakes we made, so cannot blame it on the boat! There is no doubt, however, that Playing Around is being sailed very well.

May 2007

Final day Lymington Spring Series

A grand day out.

Yesterday (Sunday) was the last two races of the Lymington Spring Series, short course windward returns. The sun shone and the breeze was fair with usable shifts 5 – 10 knots. We had seven on board, with our guest crew for the day Pippa Wilson, from the Yngling Girls Olympic campaign, who had just returned from a third, on countback, from the Russians and the Yanks at the Hyeres Olympic classes regatta. She trimmed with Bob, and worked with Tim on tactics.

The boat loved the conditions. We were the highest and fastest boat on the course, and are starting to sail to our rating. We also had two good starts, clear air, and the opportunity to control the opposition by the careful application of dirty air when it suited us. In the second race we know where we lost time (bottom mark roundings not perfect yet but greatly improved, and massively overstanding (nearly forgetting) a tack across to pass through the upwind gate), yet we were only 32 seconds behind the winner, the well-sailed HOD35 Zarafa, on corrected.

The first race was interesting. We sailed the wrong course, as did Zarafa, Runaway and Jelly Baby. Call this Heat 9A. We got line honours in Heat 9A.

April 2007Race day 3 in the Lymington Spring Series was cancelled due to no wind. Apart from the wind situation, the weather was great with a number of the crew wearing shorts and t-shirt for the day. We did get some valuable asymmetrical spinnaker and light wind tacking practice. Thanks again to everyone who sailed with us this week. Lets hope next weekend brings some good racing weather.March 2007 (II)Race day 2 in the Lymington Spring Series was a very enjoyable and successful day with winds ranging from 13 to 25 knots for race 3 and 4 of the series. We finished 1st over the line in race 3 and 3rd over the line in race 4 and 3rd in both races on corrected time. Results are now on our ‘Results’ page. Thanks to everyone who sailed with us this week. March 2007 (I) We have started the 2007 sailing season with a very successful and enjoyable first day’s racing in the Henri Lloyd Lymington Spring Series. Once again, we were given no time to relax with a relatively short course set for our first two races. As we gain more experience, hopefully we will be able to work our way up the leader board as the series progresses.JEBA will be permanently berthed at Lymington from this weekend and we are working on getting her bum cleaned before this weekend.Thank you to all who sailed with us last week.February 2007Click below to read the first UK Tasar Association newsletter for 2007. This edition includes a report on the 2006 National Championships. Tasar Newsletter UKJanuary 2007January was a cold but reasonably busy month. JEBA survived England’s biggest storm in 20 years. JEBA was safely tucked away in the marina but winds reached 99mph (86 knots) out at the needles and the harbour side roads in Poole had surfable waves crashing down on them. The highlight of the month was the arrival of our good friends John and Jenny Simondson on holiday from Australia. We had a brilliant week that started with an overnight trip to Lymington where we joined the RLYC winter rally to Cowes before a very nice sail back to Poole. This was followed by a very enjoyable Australia Day cruise around Poole Harbour with the now customary Pint at the town quay. JEBA was again dressed with various Aussie flags. We have now accepted a berth at Berthon Marina in Lymington. JEBA will no longer be just down the road, but she will be in the Solent and close to where the racing is and close to some very handy cruising locations.December 2006 JEBA has been very busy since being delivered in August 2006. Her delivery from the Hamble to Poole was a very exciting three days. Although it was only around 30 miles, we took the opportunity to do some exploring on our way, pick up an unexpected delivery crew member and enjoy the boat we had been looking forward to sailing for a very long time.
In the few months we’ve had her, JEBA has been the most overused boat in the marina. She has even entered her first racing series, the Solent Winter Series, which we used as a crew recruitment and training exercise, as well as an opportunity to get the boat out on a racetrack. JEBA made the long and eventful trip to Torquay to act as transport and accommodation while Ben and Lucy won the UK National Tasar Championships. Her last expedition was to take a number of jovial crew out for a Christmas day carol singing expedition.
In January JEBA will be pulled out of the water for a clean and a rest before beginning a busy, and hopefully successful, 2007. Ben and Lucy aboard JEBA in Torquay after winning the Tasar UK National