HOEOCA's 2021 Succesful Fastnet Campaign

HOEOCA Sfida finished at 9:32:59 on Friday 13 August 2021

Provisional Results (at 23:00 15 August)

3rd of the F40's
7th in IRC 2B
17th in IRC 2 (fleet of 50)
99th in IRC Overall
At the Rock

3rd of the F40's
7th in IRC 2B
19th in IRC 2
89th in IRC Overall

As I sit down to start to write the story so far for the HOEOCA Fastnet 2021 campaign I took the opportunity re-read Simon Dipple's short history of the Fastnet campaigns over the last 8 years and realise the legacy I am joining.  This is my first race season ever, yes, I am the race and Fastnet virgin on the team, with everyone else having completed at least one previous Fastnet campaign with the club.  With Simon as skipper and all this experience I feel I am in good hands.

Due to COVID restrictions our campaign for Fastnet 2021 started on ‘Zoom’ during the wet, dark evenings of February with discussions on the planning, Expedition software, etc all building up the anticipation and excitement of actually getting back on the water and sailing ‘fast and furious’ (but safely).  During this time Simon Dipple, our skipper and veteran of many offshore races, and Stephanie Williams worked tirelessly behind the scenes making it all possible with discussions with boat owner and visits to our campaign boat, Sfida, a First 40.

Finally, we could go sailing and it was to be our first race – Myth of Malham  - Cowes to the Eddystone lighthouse and back over the late May bank holiday weekend.  With hindsight this was to be a bit of a baptism of fire as a easterly breeze meant a start under spinnaker and hunting for the wind and tide, with some rather dodgy gybes and sail changes as we made it out of the Solent.  We had had only a day’s training the day before but the impact of COVID meant we were all a rusty, didn’t know the boat and weren’t yet a well-oiled team – this would need to come.  After the downwind leg to the Eddystone lighthouse with night time sail changes and spinnaker gybes (and small holes in the spinnaker) it was time to round up and beat back home.  Once again we had a range of winds, with the direction and speed varying from a F1 to F4, this combined with our tiredness, rustiness and having not gelled as a crew meant that our performance slipped and we making mistakes.  We finally crossed the finished line in glorious sunshine after 1 day 21 hours finishing 12th in our class and 25 minutes behind the top First 40 finisher. Now it was time for reflection…..

Our performance in the race had sharply highlighted the size of gap in our performance, individually and as a team, but we had started to get know each other. To build from this base, we all decided to forego the next race and focus instead on a training session over a long weekend on the 12 June. COVID restrictions had meant that we had not been able to do this before the first race.

The weather for our training weekend was forecast to be sunny and with high pressure sitting over the UK, light winds.  We were just hoping for sufficient wind.  As many of us know that this is often the case, either not enough or too much wind!  With light easterly winds over Friday and Saturday we spent our time beating up to windward towards Portsmouth before turning, hoisting the spinnaker and gybing back down towards Hurst Castle with frequent sail changes to begin to (re-) establish the habits of working as a coordinated and fluent team.  A key part of our improvement came through splitting us into dedicated ‘fore deck’ and ‘pit’ crews. In the spirit of HOEOCA, these teams became known as ‘Fore Deck Committee’ with Steph Williams, Róisín Ní Chonghaile, Richard Parsons and myself and the ‘Miners’ Union’ with Allen Busby, Pete Elson, Phil Cooper and Will Russell respectively.  At the end of Saturday’s training we had the presentation of the team shirts which was brilliantly done by Steph with some compliments about each of us and finishing each one with the immortal words – ‘I DO hope that I’m on your watch’.  This was followed by a team meal over at The Bistro on Shamrock Quay, with Will bolstering his sugar intake for the next day.

On Sunday the sun shone for us and we had 5-15Kt winds from the South East which allowed us to continue our training up and down Southampton water with little pleasure traffic and just the occasional super tanker and usual ferries to avoid. Overall a great weekend and the HOEOCA Fastnet team really came together, with a strong comradery and a ‘all for one and one for all’ spirit.  Having never raced before I am now getting the bug, perhaps a few years too late, and I am really looking forward to our next time out again in at the start of July with the race to St Malo.

Pictured

Back row left to right: Pete Elson, Steph Williams, Roisin Ní Chonghaile, Allen Busby (trying to hide), Richard Parsons, Gareth Williams (boat owner), Will Russell, Phil Cooper

Front Row: Simon Maycock, Simon Dipple

Update 19 July - Miss being the 1st First 40 over the line by 7 seconds in the Cowes-St Malo race!

We are now well into our campaign and we had the opportunity to put all of our training into practice over the weekend of the 9 July with the race from Cowes to St Malo onboard Sfida, a Beneteau First 40. This race was an opportunity to try out revised watch system of 4 hours on and 4 hours off in preparation for the Fastnet race.

After the Thursday of prepping and tweaking the boat we set off on Friday morning into the Solent for the upwind start amongst the hordes of boats all jostling for the best position on the line. With little wind getting the best tides and clean air was imperative to our performance and ensuring that we were well positioned when passing the Needles. Not wanting to cross the line early we took the decision to hang back slightly and crossed the start line about a minute after the cannon went off.  Surely in 34 hours of racing this would not matter and more importantly we had not any incidents or penalties.  The race in the Solent was just like a dinghy race albeit with bigger boats and all 110 of us trying to get ahead of each other!

Once safely passed the Needles, and avoiding the wreck by a small margin, we set off south across the Channel. This race was all about making the most of the light and variable winds so Simon (skipper and not me) spent his time pouring over the Gribs looking to see if there was any change trying to ensure we made the most of any wind changes to optimize our routing. Gradually the miles ticked away with the majority of the crew sitting on the rail (windward and leeward sides) trying to maximize our speed and sharing conversations: we could always rely on Will Russell for the stories!  After a delicious meal of Sheppard’s Pie prepared by Pete and his good lady we settled into our watch system for the night.

During the night we were expecting rain and, to be very honest, we were all hoping ‘it wasn’t on my watch’. The Red watch signed off at 2am, only for the Blue watch to come up, the heavens open up and the wind die to nothing. They spent their watch trying to keep the boat moving, pirouetting around clumps of weed and changing sails in the dark, all the while the red watch slept below: that’s race sailing for you. To add insult to injury, the rain stopped just as the red watch came back on watch.

We rounded the Casquets and then Les Hanois lighthouse before heading down to St. Malo. All was going well before the wind died completely with 20 miles to go. Up went the lightest spinnaker and under the guidance of the boat owner, Gareth, and Skipper Simon we managed to keep moving at between 1 and 3 knots towards the finish line.  No one dared move for fear of upsetting the balance and Steph steered the boat from one gybe to the other. After 10 hours drifting around outside St Malo we finally crossed the line: we were the 1st First 40 over the line!  Later on after the corrected times were calculated we found had missed this honour by 7 seconds after 34 hours of racing!  Overall we came 11th in our class and 78th overall out of 110 boats starting.

Whilst there was an opportunity to race back we had decided due to time that we would just sail or motor back. Given the very light winds it was a motor back, avoiding unlit fishing boats and lobster pots (nothing new there!) and everyone getting a good rest. We were gelling as a team.

Overall we were pleased with our performance and certainly a great improvement on our previous race with everyone becoming very much more familiar with the boat and our roles: although our memories and reading emails still require some work as some of us could remember/didn’t know what our roles were in spite of emails and lists. On the domestic side the boat was a lot tidier with designated storage for everything; however, we still had one team member who managed to deposit his clothing around the boat.

As the a newbie to racing and HOEOCA the whole experience has been great fun, incredibly social and I have learnt so much around sail trim and working together. I am looking forward to our next Channel race this weekend and the Fastnet race in about 3 weeks.