remmie’s sailing blog

OK, kind of lost energy for this (had my reasons, read on) but decided it’s time to bring things up to date… this is going to be long…

Since Semptember, crap, I can’t think that far back…  OK stuff…

Been sailing in 4 formats; serious offshore on the little girl (60′ sled), drunken under-crewed comedy routines (Farr 30), rapid learning curve of suicide (Thompson 980), cruisy slack racing on a custom 42′ cat.
First off, cruisy slack racing on the cat.  Me and a mate (from the Farr30) took a couple weeks off and headed up for the 20th Kings Cup Regata in Phuket, anyone that has done this regatta will tell you about it.  Basically 7 days of racing boats and 5 nights of all your can eat/drink (for $120) on a tropical island, seriously what it’s all about.  My olds are retired and gone sailing, been hanging about in SE Asia for the past 3 years so I make them come back for KC each year, makes for cheap accomodation and is a good chance to catch up with them.  Rocked up on the Friday, racing starts Sunday, we don’t have a boat.  Not really stressed out, got our ears to the ground and have put the word out.

Saturday night I’m out showing my mate showing him the, errr, “sights” of Thailand and we get a call from the old man telling us to stop drinking and get out asses to bed, he’s just got off the phone from Nick Burns and we have a ride.  Nick is co-owner in Mandrake, a modified (optimised 8-12kts) Mills 51 which runs a semi-pro crew and competes throughout the SE Asia regatta circuit, it’s a serious race progrma with serious boat.  At this point celebratory drinks are required and the night degrades further.  I eventually call a halt to the evening and on the walk home meet our old friend, projectile vomit.  HAHA, drank too much you say, this degraded to diahorea and vomitting for 4 days and went though my mate and my olds, gastro virus says I.

So anyways, that puts me off Mandrake for the Sunday which is the practice race and the day they’re bedding in crew, so basically off the boat.  Cruising cat is hunting for crew so end up there.  Continue week of racing and partying, managed to get a quick ride on Mandrake later in the week and we’re welcome back so get another run sometime.  Also on Mandrake were an awesome Pommie/Irish couple that we spent the week running a muck with.  Final night party was interesting, we stole something like 8 bottles of spirits from the bar (for 6 people), went skinny dipping, grabbed any decent looking chicks wandering down the beach and convinced them to go skinny dipping…. the usual sort of behavior :).  Pics of all the boats and stuff (not of the skinny dipping, drunken behaviour, family/friends, etc) are at,
 http://picasaweb.google.com/jockmain/KingsCup/
After all the racing was finished we went island hopping with the olds and the Pommy/Irish couple, had an awesome couple days just cruising around.  Already making arrangements for next year :)  The only downer for the trip was I dislocated my shoulder in my sleep again, thankfully it’s the last day there but yeah.

Farr 30 racing has been awesome, it’s a 5 or 6 person boat, we go out just the 3 of us.  Generally put away a carton during a race (it’s only river racing), end up pissed drunk (when ever the skipper starts making any sort of decision we give him a fresh can to shut him up), our record is opening the 5th can at the first mark, and we’re currently leading the series.  All three of us can sail, we’ve all done significant time on the boat, we’re all great mates.  The only talking about anything to do with the race is the crew making a tactical decision whilst the skipper has another can.  Only problem with the whole routine is the skipper has to give up the helm during the longer races cause he get’s too pissed to steer straight.  Yes, I know, I know; blah blah blah, it’s not safe.  We aren’t that bad, it’s just we approach the racing as a great oppurtunity to catch up with the boys and have a couple beers, racing is a second priority.  We seem to be pissing a few people off though, we’re running on a 2nd, 1st, 2nd for racing in this format, we’ve done one race with a full crew and we got a 4th; go figure.  Always racing with those guys when ever I can.

Inglis 57 had it’s twin rudders built, first race out was for the Perth to Geraldton race, I was a bit nervous about testing out the new twins on the hardest race of the year but always makes things interesting.  (Un)fortunately I had to pull out due to another shoulder dislocation (this time had a “tourist” fall on top of me when a gybe caught her off balance out on the T980).  The Gero course is basically around Rottnest (12nm offshore from Perth, turn right and head off on 300nm kite run.  The boys didn’t make it to the Windmills (halfway to Rotto) before they had technical difficulties which made the local rag…
 http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33007
 http://www.sailinganarchy.com/forums/index.php?act=Attach&type=post&id=33008
So that put her our of action for another couple weeks.  Once she was back in the water had a couple races on her and since then I’ve stopped racing on her because of my shoulder dislocations and the new kid in town.

We’ve had a rapid learning curve of suicide on a Thompson 980 which has just moved to WA.  It was bought by a lady who used to race on the Farr30 occassionally and it’s just too pornographic not to sail on.  Pictures at,
 http://picasaweb.google.com/jockmain/DarkEnergy/
The boat is a weapon, best we’ve had is 16kts, that was in 20kt with 25kt gusts and it was completely controlled, stable, and it was just humming.  We’ve just got outselves a handicap for club racing and in the process of prep’ing the boat for the state regatta week.  Been doing lots of racing, generally a couple races a weekend and the owner has a serious race schedule in mind, we’re already committed to Skandia next year.  It’s been over for a couple months so far, been having a ball on it, actually allowed off the front of the boat, calling tactics and secondary helm which is nice upgrade and been allowed to steal it while she was over for Skandia so yeah, kind of cool.  She’s just keeping me sweet cause she knows I’m the sucker that’ll stay up till 3am rebuilding winches for her (I was late for work this morning, why I’m not in the mood for work, and why I’m writing this).

Other than that, not a heap to tell.  Shoulder has definately been pissing me off (and that’s basically why I haven’t been keeping this up to date) and had me a bit down; busted shoudler = can’t sail = pissed off remmie.  It’s put me off the big girl (60′ boat doing 20kt+ offshore ain’t the place to be taking my shoulder) but I’ve found the little girl (T980) and in a much safer role (tacticians are the laziest bastards ever).  Trying to tee up the reconstruction over winter so I reduce my down time and see what happens next year.  T980 is talking about serious offshore, I reckon a 30′ sports boat doing 20kt+ offshore will be pretty good fun but we’ll see what pans out.