J22 Fleet Racing – Cayman Islands — 11 March '10

11 March –15 March

A team of RTYC Younger Members took part in the fourth International Invitational J/22 Regatta.

Cayman Race Report

12 - 15 March 2010

    

During March a young team consisting of Oliver Dix, Ben Walker, Charlie Lowe and Judith Sasse flew to Gran Cayman to represent the Royal Thames Yacht Club in a J22 invitational regatta.

The team arrived three days before the event to do some sightseeing and acclimatise to the local condition. Every day while we were there the weather was extremely hot and the sun was shining.

For the duration of the event we were hosted by Peter and Patricia Cunningham who are fellow Royal Thames members. We stayed in their fabulous Villa next door to the golf course.

On the few days preceding the event we spent our time looking around the islands and taking in the beautiful islands. Peter kindly gave us the use of this motor boat which was much appreciated as it was just a short trip across the North Sound to the sailing club.

On the day of the Practice Race, the boat draw took place and our team was given a boat called Onion Barge. We had two practice sails and started to get used to new routines. Our positions on the boat were: Oliver - Helm, Charlie - Mainsheet, Ben - Trim, and Judith - Bow.

On the Practice day the wind blew harder than usual (20kts) and the race was postponed until late afternoon. We took this opportunity to fine tune our boat and get to know the other teams who had travelled to the event. Attending the event were local teams, and other teams from Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada and Jamaica. The opening ceremony took place at the Governors' residence, which is on Seven mile beach, a great location. 

The next day's racing was very tight will all boats rounding the windward mark within a couple of minutes. The wind was stronger than expected and this hindered the boat handling of ourselves and other new teams sailing these boats for the first time together. We had a few exciting mark rounding with a few boats deciding on different courses. After three races we felt that we had learnt a lot and there was a room for improvement.

The next two days had lighter winds and the Royal Thames started to shine with each race arriving at the windward mark in the top few boats. Downwind boat speed was much missed but the upwind legs and leeward mark rounding's saw Royal Thames excel and gain many places. Towards the end of the regatta our results improved rapidly, thanks to great team work and keeping cool under pressure. The last day was the best with two, 8th and a 5th out of 11 boats. This improvement was much helped by Peter Cunningham providing us wind excellent sails which was us competing with the better boats, yet still a way off the first few boats with brand new sails!! Sadly our poor early performance adversely affected our overall results.

Our team's attendance and performance more than made up for our mishaps on the water.

On the final day after racing our kind host Peter took us in his boat to Sting Ray city to swim with the Sting Rays. It was an amazing sight to see these animals swim around you in the water.

Our greatest thanks go to the Jane and Andrew Moon and Mike Farrington at the sailing club for making us most welcome along with all the other competitors which we all enjoyed a great week sailing.

We cannot forget the unprecedented support and welcoming we received from Peter and Patricia Cunningham for kindly letting us stay with them. We all had an amazing time with them both and hope that they come to London soon to visit.

Oliver Dix