Sailors battle snow & dragons

It was a cold Friday night in late November when a group of six sailors headed to Cardiff to compete in the Cardiff Dragon team racing event. As planned, Chris and Martin had got the coach earlier while I was to go home and meet the others at the Union for 18:00. Unfortunately I left it a bit late so didn’t get to the Union till gone 19:00. The others piled in while berating me for my lateness and, with some trepidation, we headed for Cardiff. Our fear was not unjustified as this was forecast to be one of the coldest weekends of the year. As we headed off, the radio reported widespread ice on the roads, that Cardiff airport was closed due to snow and that there were 26 mile queues on the M4 into Cardiff.

Considering this, our journey went surprising smoothly. Once we got out of the standard London evening traffic it was smooth driving all the way to Wales with only a brief stop for food. Near Cardiff the roads were still clear, with the forecast traffic not materialising, and while we were slowed slightly by fog we made good time and arrived at about 22:30. After a minor navigational error took us into an industrial estate, we found our way to host’s house and rejoined the other members of the team.

Saturday morning soon arrived and we headed off to the sailing club. This was more of a challenge than it may sound as we had to fit six sailors and all their gear into my rather small car. However we managed and soon arrived at the club to find people rigging boats in the snow. Once this was done, we quickly headed into the warmth to wait for the briefing. However our wait was soon interrupted by one of the Cardiff sailors asking if anyone had jump leads as one of their motorboats had a flat battery. Surprisingly I did, so lent them mine, highly reassured by the high level of organisation, or maybe not. Eventually the briefing did occur and after some more faffing the racing began by about 11:30, only two hours late!

Team racing involves races between two teams of three boats. In each race you score a number of points equal to your position and the team with the lowest total score wins. This results in intense racing as you must use the rules to help your team. If you come 1st but your team mates are 5th and 6th you still lose.

On Saturday the weather was quite windy as demonstrated by our great and glorious commodore Chris who capsized before the beginning of the first race. Not fun in sub-zero temperatures. Our first race started well with a good start. One of the other teams was holding Chris up, preventing him from heading to the 1st mark, so I went to cover him allowing Chris to escape. Unfortunately Chris messed this up and did a rather dodgy move which, if I was on the other team, would have protested. They did not, but Chris promptly went and capsized again. Smooth. Fortunately Fiona and I were able to get a 1-2 to win the race anyway. In our next race, we again got a good start and while the opposition had 1st we had 2-3-4 and were able to hold on to get our second win.

After a short break we were back out and feeling pretty confident although we knew we would need to do well to beat Exeter, our next opposition, who were one of the better teams at the event. Unfortunately this was not to be as a poor start gave them 1-2 around the first mark and we were not able to recover. Next up was Reading, a team we thought were of a similar standard to us. Again we did not get a great start but coming up to the first mark Chris was 2nd and I was 3rd. The 1st Reading boat was holding us up trying to get their next boat through. They had Chris locked and I should have sailed so that they continue around the course or I would overtake them. Foolishly I did not do this but sailed right into the lock they had Chris in, allowing their boat to overtake both of us. They were now in 1-2 and promptly sailed off and won. Disappointed by this change of fortune we headed in for lunch, expecting to go out again soon. This was delayed by breakages to boats which caused racing to be stopped while they were repaired. Our fifth race eventually started and involved the most actual team racing of the day. I was 1st and Chris 3rd around the first mark. Therefore I decide to do a mark trap to try and get Chris past the boat behind. This almost worked as Chris got through. Unfortunately I was also overtaken so we were still in 1-3 going down the run. This is a winning combination, however, it is unstable as the opposition can easily use their boat in second to attack your boat in third. Therefore Chris set up to do another mark trap at mark three. This proved unnecessary as the boat in two capsized and I was able to sail past. Our final race of the day proved another easy win as Chris and I got 1-2 while Fiona held up to opposition.

After this it was in and time to get changed and warmed. Unfortunately due to the numerous delays the round robin was not finished for all teams before it got dark so it was announced that it would complete on Sunday morning. We then headed back to our hosts house to get ready for the social, which had the theme “Where’s Wally”. This involved everyone dressing up as Wally except for Chris who was volunteered to be Wanda, who is apparently Wally’s sister. This was quite disturbing. The social was a buffet meal followed by a night at the excellent Cardiff Union. Suffice to say I do not remember much of the evening beyond wondering back with Fiona and Iona when the Union closed, the others had already left. I was just about to get into my sleeping bag when a somewhat irate Iona interrupted me asking me to get Chris out of her bed. While hilarious, I can see why she was a bit annoyed by this.

All too soon Sunday arrived. As we had done all our races on Saturday we knew we would not be in the first race, so we had a lie in. Arriving about an hour late I was somewhat concerned to see that racing hadn’t actually started yet. I was even more worried that it was even colder than yesterday and in the lighter winds, ice had formed on the SALT water of Cardiff Bay. While we waited for the round robin to finish we sat around inside and like good Imperial students either did work or read the maths and physics books that we had all brought with us.

Eventually the round robin was finished and it was announced that the top six teams would have a round robin while the others would do a winner stays on competition due to lack of time. This was very annoying as the main reason for the lack of time was Cardiff’s slow organisation. We were tied in second with Reading in our flight. This should have put Reading through on tiebreakers, even more annoying. However the organisers did it a weird way so Reading didn’t go through either.

This now meant we had to wait even longer as we were near the top of the seeding, meaning we weren’t on until the end. Eventually we were sent out only to get onto the floating pontoon where changeovers were happening to find that one of the boats was broken. This involved more waiting while this problem was sorted. Except now we were on a freezing pontoon in the middle of the water. Eventually we got to race which we promptly lost. We were 4-5-6 by the first mark and a cock up from me, nearly taking Fiona out did not help.

We then packed up and headed for home. Not too displeased with our 8th place but feeling we could have done much better. If you’d like to come sailing, we welcome experienced sailors and beginners alike.