Racing our new boat
Preparations
October 30
I installed the battery terminalS in the morning and wanted to do more electrics but then the clock was ticking. I thereforetook all the construction materials off the boat. Meanwhile Joel sorted out the deck and changed the belt of the motor as last preparations for the regatta.
Mavic, Miriam and Regis arrived around 10:00 from Subic via Batangas by speed boat and we had brunch in the Puerto Galera Yacht Club and then brought their stuff and my tools to the private residence which we had booked for the week.
In the afternoon two guys, who learned sailing in the small boat program, joined us and we took the boat out to test the standard sails, gennacker (cruising chute) and spinnacker. It went reasonably well, with a few things identified to be fixed before the race on the next day. I had to buy another 21 meters of rope at the Broadwater Marine booth, which had just opened for the regatta.
Day 1: October 31
First day real sailing on IRResistable. Peter, the previous owner, joined today. He suggested that he should helm and show us the boat – sort of on the job training. We also had a crew of 4, Joel and three boys from the Small Boat Program to help with pulling the sheets and with setting up the cruising chute or spinnacker, if needed.
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Sailing was great fun, first running down to White Beach, jibing around the marker buoy there, then tacking back towards Long Beach, passing the second marker, then rounding third and back to the second running, around it and then towards the finishing line.
We lost some time with the Spinnacker boom that was still attached to a sheet when tacking.
We came in fourth, out of 14 boats joining the race. Not too bad, for a start. But honestly, it was not so much our doing since besides helming we did not to much handling of the rig.
It was the first time that we had a crew doing most of the work. A very different experience.
Day 2: November 1
The course today was going to Verdi Island and back. Going there was supposed to be against the wind with lots of tacking, going back running with spinnacker or cruising chute.
We left the mooring early, around 10:30 while our starting time was 11:24, with a slight adjustment of yesterday (11:14). What did we do yesterday to deserve this penalty?
Running with sails at butterfly through the Manila channel, with Princess Arietta, she started at the same time as us, following us closely. We then turned north pretty close to Long Beach, much closer that we used to with Magayon II because you often get stuck without wind in the Landabdeckung of the island. But Joel said that the mast of IRResistable is so high, that it still gets some wind. Turned out to be a good move because we were a few hull length ahead of Princess Ariette at the end of Long Bach. Turning east towards Verdi Island and off we went, beating. IRResistable is pretty good at this so we managed to put some distance between us and the following boats of the same size, except for RAGS, which was trimmed to be a racer with all unnecessary equipment removed.
On the long was to Verdi Island the bigger boats overtook us. But we were still competing with RAGS and Princess Arietta. A huge black cloud with signs of downpours appeared from South East, moving towards us. So we abandoned plans to use one of the lightened foresails on the way back. The apparent wind changed favorably when the cloud reached us so that we could make it around the marker without tacking. Most of the other boats had to tack twice to get around.
Back to Puerto Galera on a broad reach with standard sails. All boats that used spinnackers or gennackers had to go North West pretty much downwind. So we thought that we still had a chance to catch up with some of the other boats that we are ahead of us. Princess Ariatta had some problems at the Verdi Island Marker making them almost to go around it twice. So we got far ahead of her and she was not a challenge anymore for the rest of the race.
But we were trying to keep up with RAGS. Since she went downwind a lot with her gennacker we thought we had a chance, but at the end she came in before us. On the last meters before the finish line, a French owned trimaran on foils overtook us. It started last, but had a top speed of 18 knots when on foils.
It was a great day, R. and I went to the Trimaran Carbon Credit after the race since the owner, B. Had asked me to look at his radar, which he thought was not working. I brought R. along since I don’t have any experience with radars. We could not help much but R. gave him some contacts in Subic who could help. B. Wants to sail singlehanded back to Hong Kong next week and therefore needs the radar working.
The evening saw the auction for the small boat program, awarding of the day’s winners (we were mentioned as runner ups), and the party with life band which used to be the Halloween party.
It was fun, and also fruitful since I was able to talk to B. about how to register a boat in Poland. He registered his boat in Poland. He gave me several contacts.