Chapter 12

DAY 11

“Hello sleepy heads. How’s the Greek God? We have a race to win. The honour of Aristotle Travel is at stake.”

Oh dear, the ‘Greek God’ term had stuck. I was going to have to live with it, I could tell. But what was this about a race?

All the skippers were to meet at 11am, I had ten minutes to wash, dress, drink a coffee, and row over to Shag.

“Hi Chris, okay, all here? This is an optional event, and we all have to do it.” Craig smiled. “No, not really. It’s just for fun. You’ll have noticed that there are quite a few boats here. There is Aristotle Travel, that’s us of course; and there is Artemia with their three boats, and there is Singles Sailing and they have five boats. All male I think Mike? Yes. I think they’re a sailing club and a business doing bonding stuff. We have this race every month. It is optional, I stress that, but we all race to Tongar Bay. So about two or three hours. We all eat in a big restaurant there. We’ll collect money for all the food, but the first round is paid for by the company that loses the race. So we need to know who’s racing.” There is a points based scheme. Because there are three Artemia boats, the first three boats from each flotilla are counted. Honestly, honestly, its just fun. The first round is easily within our budgets. But honour is at stake! Questions? Yes Captain Had ... Handcook”

“Will the lead boats be involved? Also, I notice that the Artemia boats are longer than ours”

“Lead boats are neutral, we will help anybody on this sail. We aren’t in the race. Yes, you’re right Artemia had a length advantage”

“And size matters, doesn’t it ladies?” said a woman from one of the other boats, with a laugh. We all smiled at that.

“But they definitely don’t win every time! I think the crews are so variable that most of the sailing speed is down to the skill of the crews. So ... who’s in?”

I knew that Joanne would kill me if I said no. I wasn’t that competitive really, but I knew she was. And I suspected the others would enjoy it too. I put us down as a competitor, and went back to get ready. There was a light wind. We could get all the sails up I thought.

“Well? Are we up for this?”

“Hell Yes!” said Joanne

“Yesah! Lets do this” Said Tony. The others were generally okay with the idea, and so we prepared. We dressed properly, cleared the decks to cut down windage, made sandwiches and a jug of juice for lunch. We attached the genoa and tied it up ready to release easily. At 12, the horn went, fifteen minutes to go. Up anchor. And motor around. We were on our honour not to be using engine after crossing the line. The line was between the Artemia lead and Shag. Singles Sailing lead was outside and would hopefully stay in the lead so it could warn of any problems ahead.

“Head over to the far side of the bay, Tony. The wind will be better” The horn went for five minutes as we headed that way. Five, four, three minutes. The horn went off again. Two minutes. “Sails up” Main up in thirty seconds, genoa shaken out. And:

“Going about” shouted the helm (Tony) and we started heading towards the line.

“Cut the engine” I shouted, at thirty seconds. I slackened the main to slow us slightly, then at 10, hauled it in again, 9, 8, 7, 6, seconds. The horn went again. I was sure it was early! Two Singles Sailings boats flashed across the line, Captain Haddock cut across the opposite way. Tony kept her nerve with stunning calmness and cut so close to his stern I could see every worry line. No doubt he could see mine!

“Chris! This is for fun!” Cheryl said

“Tell your daughter! She’s a maniac. Actually, I was watching, we had enough space”

The hardest thing was not to take control. Although I was the skipper, I wanted the girls to sail. I just ‘suggested’ occasional changes. And we swapped positions regularly. Cheryl took the helm and was hopeless. She oversteered, had all week. Fred said “Mum, can I take it? You’re losing us a bit of speed”