Thursday evening saw the crew of Mystere competing in the third race of the GYC Boatworks+ Spring Series. After the first two races of the series Mystere was sitting in first place overall (not including discards) with only one point between us and second place boat Busker.

Given our rather inconstant performance last year we all knew that we were capable of sailing a good race, we just needed to do it. And we need to do it constantly.

First task before heading out of the harbour was deciding crew positions. As always nobody was wanting to make the decisions (this is one of the problems of power sharing owners but I shalln’t dwell on that now) but eventually it was decided that Dave would keep the helm as he had helmed us to second place whilst Shane was away for the previous race and Shane didn’t seem to be too fussed if he didn’t helm, Helen stayed on the main sheets which she seems to be able to handle quite competently and I was sent up front as I seem to be the only one half willing to do it apart from Dave, Shane and Leigh shared the task of trimming the genoa & spinnaker.

With the course route logged we headed out of the harbour to check wind direction, start positions and downwind bearings. Whilst the others kept time & check sail trimming I got the pole ready for the spinnaker run.

The start of the race ran pretty much to plan, and we were one of the first if not the first boat across the line. The rest of the first leg was pretty un-eventful, it was a case of point and trim. After the first mark it was a spinnaker run across the Little Russel from Anfre to Blanche Aiguillons, for the second time in history I managed to get all the ropes sorted out up on the bow for a mostly trouble free hoist and a drop of the genoa.

There were a few hairy moment on the spinnaker run but after the twining lines were tightened and people got into position those problems were quickly sorted out.

For the whole of the spinnaker run we were closely followed by Guffin and her young(er than us) crew. The were covering us well but each time the pulled out to pass us our larger spinnaker filled and we pulled ahead again. Exactly what happened coming up to the mark I am unsure of as I had to head to the bow to catch the spinnaker as it came down. What I do know is that I didn’t have time to open the fore hatch and so had to gather the spinnaker in my lap. This would have been fine only I then managed to get the genoa sheet caught up as I stuffed the spinnaker down the hatch. Shane came a got the pole down as I freed the sheet but we had already lost time.

The third leg was a beat back up to Anfre. All that could be done was to sheet the sails in tight and keep it close to the wind. We know that Mystere can sail close to the wind and so we headed off on a starboard tack when most other boats seemed to be going on a port tack. Although the temptation was strong to change to a port tack we kept to our guns. When Anfre finally came to 90 degrees of us we tacked over. At this point Mustard Mitt was just head of us on the same heading, unfortunately they had to tack over in order to make the mark and it seemed like we’d have to put an extra tack in. Fortunately, thanks to Daves helming we managed to make the mark without the extra tack. On that leg most of the boats had to put in three or four tacks but we managed it in only two.

The last leg was a reach from Anfre to Distance via Terres, we knew it was going to tight race so Helen was instructed to “Pump the main like it was Daves…”, err never mind that last bit. Coming up to the finish line we decided to take the shortest line to the finish between Oyster and Castle Cornet whilst everyone else was heading out around Oyster.

All that remain was to head moor the boat and head over to the yacht club for a beer and to wait for the results. And the result was a quite respectable third place behind Banjaard and Mustard Mitt II in a field of ten boats. There was also much speculation as to our overall placing, whether or not we lost out first place. Well, I can confirm that, not including discards (of which we are allowed two this series) we are first place by two points but, including discards, we are first place by one point with Busker and Glory Days coming in joint second place.

Now, more than ever we need consistently good sailing.