Its always a well attended event, but this year saw it fall at the same time with school exams, so the turnout was a bit less, still with a total of 34 yachts heading up to Marzememi, combining two races, there, and then back, it promised to be a great weekend.
The weather during the week before blew hard, and it was settling just in time for the start, first to leave the line were the cruiser class, 7 yachts in total, but with little wind off Tigne point, the IRC race cass was delayed for 20 minutes while the cruisers cleared the line, ouch this start line hurts when there is little wind, and a huge wind shadow from the new buildings at Tigne point.
Once the IRC Racer start was back on we were well set in the middle of the group, and with just enough wind managed to clear the line, and raise the asym to pull us out of the wind shadow, once clear we switched back to the no1 and were off at a good pace, this continue, with our track nicely along the rhumb line until around 1030 when the wind started to die, we knew it would drop off, but this was too much, and too early, after and hour and a half plus of no to little wind, and rapidly approaching 1300, the executive decision was made to fire up the iron genny, and head on to sicily, for the remaining few yachts that stayed out, the wind came in eventually with finishers starting to come in after 9, and the last finisher in after 11. To be honest by then I was on my fourth course of fish!
The weekend was a great success and after a great club meal on Saturday night, it was time to setup for the trip back, with an expected 15 to 20 knots that would ease as we sailed, it looked like being a great race back. The start was fast, a nice reach and we were all off, after rounding the point of sicily it picked up and continued to increase so reefs had to go in and jib furled, unfortunately for Vivace, the no1 we are rated with, really does not work well on the wind when furled, so we immediately were not able to point as high as the other yachts, that said our speed was up but we were losing on the pack, and I could not climb up to join them, after a wet sail back we had lost 5 miles due to current and no pointing ability, so had a final beat in calm water up the coast of Malta, this obviously had a disastrous effect on the race results, lessons to be learnt…
Good points, the 1,4m bow spirit installed dragged us out of the harbour, but we never really got another chance to use it in anger along with the asym spinny just added ot the yacht, maybe next time! Also now on the cards is a 100% jib and some light upwind sails.
Looking for racing or cruising sails in Malta, check out onesails.com, the Malta loft, Jason does a great job and provides great experience, options and after sails service.
Next race is the triple handed round gozo race, 100% jib and light upwind sails will be ready by then, as well as some sail management changes to ease the stress and workload on the crew.
