Pre Race
Instead of going to the sailing club at 7am for the breakfast, I decided to take it easy and have breakfast at home and check the latest weather forecast on the Meteo Swiss App before heading to Versoix to get Mic Mac. The forecast was saying that there was a chance for a Bise, with some strong wind, before dropping and changing wind direction in the evening.
When I got to Versoix, I then decided to use the heavier newer Genoa, which is better suited if the wind is a bit stronger. Swapping headsails and some other last-minute preparations had the effect that I slowly run out of time, if I wanted to go to the starting line in time. I left Versoix under Motor 40 minutes before the start of the race. On the way to the start I finally installed all the sheets and sails and just managed to pack the motor away, before the preparatory signal sounded. So much for taking it easy before the start....
The Start
On the starting line, I took the port end of the line, where it was a bit less crowded than on the starboard side, where everyone was battling for the best possible position. The start didn't go too bad, as far as I could judge from my position and I sailed along some other Surprises towards Ivoire. I was really happy at this point of the race and I felt I could really compete with the other Surprises around me.
Waiting for wind and a bad decision
Just off Ivoire the wind dropped, what looked like a steady Bise was suddenly a light, barely noticeable wind. While I was searching for some wind I could see a little bit of wind further on the right side of the lake, towards the French coast. I and some other boats headed towards it
, we had to realise that it wasn't a good decision. That little bit of wind soon disappeared and we saw that the boats on the swiss side had better wind and now slowly moved away from us.
Bad decision II
After some waiting, the wind picked up again and looked the steady Bise Meteoswiss had forecasted. I made good progress and was in good spirits again, seeing I lost some time, but at least, now I was going at good speed in to the right direction
. Far away I could see some very dark clouds, quickly covering big parts of the lake. Soon after, the wind started to pick up and the first whitecaps started to show on the lake. I thought that this was now the Bise and that the wind would stay like this. The boat also started to overpower and I had to tighten the backstay and ease the mainsail, so it would stop turning in to the wind all the time.
That's when I decided to take the big Genoa down and use the smaller Jib instead. It took me quite some time (much longer than in the training) to change the sails, but once it was up and sailing I was happy, until the wind dropped after ten more minutes.
Taking the Jib down and putting the Genoa up took me even longer than last time. Once the Genoa was up I tacked, only to find out that I had run the lazy sheet on the inside of the shrouds. Stupid me!!!!! It took me some more time again to sort this out. Looking around I could not see any boats around me anymore and realised that everyone else had left me behind. I was really in a bad mood and very disappointed with myself.
Windhole and spinnaker
At least the nice steady wind stayed with me, so I could cross the lake and head towards the the French coast. I even caught up to a Mirabaud Surprise and two other boats. We approached the coast and run out of wind.... After some ten minutes, the wind started to pick up, just from 180 degrees different where it was blowing before. I set the spinnaker and had a good run along the coast. Off Saint Ginolph, the wind turned again. It now came directly from the mark and I struggled to get the spinnaker down to go upwind again.
The turning mark
Now I had lots of wind, about 4-5 Bf, which carried me at good speed towards the turning mark. I was happy again to make good progress and that I made half of the distance before the sunset.
The way back
Sailing back, in direction of Lausanne the wind weakened again and started to change directions a lot. I had to tack quite a few times and changed my seating position lots of times to adjust the angle of the boat to the different wind strengths. For the next 3.5 hours, the wind stayed like this and the speed often dropped to as little as 2.5kn.
I was lucky that the wind picked up at around 11pm and my hope grew to finish the race before sunrise.
Just after crossing Ivoire the wind shifted and weakened again. It took half an hour and four tacks later the wind was back to carry me towards the finishing line.
The last bit of wind
At 3am I was convinced to finish the race within the next hour, the wind was coming from Geneva, but the angle was still big enough, so I didn't need to tack.
Just one nautical mile off the finishing line the wind almost disappeared completely. It took me over 40 minutes and several tacks to get to the finish. During this whole time, I had three other boats around me. Even though we were only separated by a few meters the difference in the finishing time was minutes, thats how light the wind had gone.
I was relieved when finally some music played when I was about to cross the line and very happy when I could hear the sound signal that told me I had finally finished the race.
At the sailing club, I was welcomed by Tim Huckstep, who got up in the middle of the night to help me bring the boat back to Versoix and unrig everything. I am very grateful for his superb help!!! Thanks a lot!!!!
I would also like to thank all the other club members (Tim F., Rob, Denise, Stefano, Andrés, Michal, Thierry and those I may have forgotten) who helped me with the trainings, good advice and preparations! And last but not least I would like to thank the club for letting me take Mic Mac for this adventure!!
Looking at the ranking (72of 107 on compensated time and in the Surprise class 26 of 31) I was quite disappointed about my positioning at first, I felt like I could have done better than this. but after some time in between the finish and now I came to the conclusion that after all I should be happy with my first participation.
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