After three weeks away and last weeks “chicken out” it was time to give Passion some of the care she deserves. The day was spent cleaning the teak decking and cockpit and washing out the fridge. Two fire extinguishers were replaced with new ones and the chart table contents were sorted and old sailing instructions confined to the rubbish bin. The diesel tank was topped up with an extra 10 litres and two trips were made to the Woolwich ferry wharf to collect water for cleaning and topping up the tanks.
As for the racing we were short handed with crew commitments elsewhere. In fact with just Frank and Ron to support Elaine and me we had more fire extinguishers on board than crew members. In consideration of the small crew I hoisted the North tri radial genoa as it is the easiest to skirt. That was a good move as the breeze freshened considerably at the start of the race and any more sail area would have been a problem.
Our best move of the evening was to tack wide of the Birchgrove shore and hook into a lift which brought us up near the front of the fleet. We were ahead of Worlds Apart when a green fleet starboard tacker decided he needed to put us about more than he needed to tack for the turning mark at Goat Island. This unexpected move caught us completely off guard as we had to tack to Starboard with no time to uncleat the genoa. We were stuck in this hove to position for quite a while and saw Worlds Apart and the new Dehler 38 go bye.
Considering the small crew we were pleased with the results. We all got a good work out and apart from a minor bruise we seemed to all come through the event unscathed.
Next week Frank is away but hopefully Kath and Kevin and Martin will be back on board.