I sheeted in hard and we set off across the start line. I decided to tack early to get into some clear water and we sailed off towards Sea Reach 4.
In order to avoid the possibility of being hindered by shipping I decided not to tack across the shipping lane, and in any case the water is shallower on the Kent side and I wanted to stay in the deeper water to make maximum use of the ebbing tide.
We were heading towards a ship anchored just off the Mulberry Harbour I did not want to get in the wind shadow of the ship so I made another early tack and headed out towards Sea Reach 3.
We were passed by Clinton Turner and we waved as they went
by.My tacks along this windward leg only crossed the paths of 3 other boats 1 of which gave way to me as I was on starboard another which I passed astern of and one other, which I had to make a rapid change of course to avoid, even though I was on Starboard. We vowed to beat that boat.
I did 5 more tacks until I judged we were finally on a course for the first mark South Shoebury, along this leg we waved to Chris and Josh on the IYC rescue boat "Fred Powell" as they past by reasonably slowly with lots of spray.
After rounding the South Shoebury, I set a course to the Medway buoy and over took a couple of other boats. The boat which had "cut me up" earlier was on my port side about 200m off, and they seemed to be struggling to keep their keel in the water as the wind had picked up a little. We increased our lead on them and by the time we were at the Medway buoy they were more or less out of sight and I forgot all about them. It was a little hectic rounding the Medway Buoy as boats seemed to be coming in from all angles.
Once round and in clear water I went on deck with Neil to get the cruising chute up, when up the chute filled and was soon pulling us towards the 3rd mark, the Nore Swatch.
Whilst on this leg and due to being slightly slow in setting the chute we
were passed by an Anderson 22. I new I had to keep pace with him, as I
recognised it as one I had competed against in the Harty Ferry race last
year. Our handicaps were close so I set my sights on this boat, I
concentrated keenly on my sails and trim of the chute, but they stayed
ahead of us.Thankfully the cruising chute came down nicely just before rounding the Nore Swatch with out too much trouble, once again we were charging along, across the estuary back towards the West Shoebury. There were a couple of ships going up and down the Sea Reach but we carried on and luckily were clear of them. I was watching the boats behind me and saw a couple of boats get across in front of a ship then the next few had to unfortunately slow down or alter course to pass astern of the ship to let it pass.
After rounding the last mark the West Shoebury, I decided against using the cruising chute in favour of polling out the genoa. We were overtaken by 2 boats on this leg as a result. One of which was the little Anderson 22, which crept past us with her spinnaker up. I had not even noticed I had passed them on the reach across the Thames. By the time we reached the finish they had quite a good lead, but not good enough as we beat them by 71 seconds on corrected time.
The conditions for the race were ideal with fresh Easterly winds. bright and sunny with good visibility.
