Sailing fun and frolics – Cowes Week and the Rolex Fastnet Race

On our way out of the Solent in very light breeze

This summer I have seized a different opportunity to travel and reminded myself always to find time for the things that make me happy. I hadn’t expected to have had the chance to get back on the water this summer – it really has been a case of every cloud having a silver lining. Sailing is in my blood, but recently I haven’t done enough – last year a regatta in Sardinia was a perfectly timed week of jollity with friends and then earlier this summer I got myself back into offshore racing again when the yacht I raced on during my university days went back into the water with a completely new crew. There’s something rather restorative about being at sea or by the sea, it has a knack of putting everything into perspective and there is always great camaraderie amongst a crew – a place where great friends are found.

Sunshine and breeze – stunning

In case you haven’t guessed yet, I am buzzing off the back of Cowes Week which was swiftly followed by the Fastnet Race. I’ve had 2 weeks off work but it feels like so much more. For me, a typical relaxing break would include a luxury hotel, down time with Mr P, privacy, reading my book and enjoying time exploring a new country or relaxing by the pool. There has been none of this yet I loved it – seasickness notwithstanding.

Smiles at Cowes, whatever the weather

Cowes Week is a key player in the British sporting summer event calendar – 1000 boats race daily at the largest regatta of its kind in the world. Fantastic fun – an event I haven’t done for many years, it was great to be back. We were racing on just 4 of the days as we had plenty of boat preparation and fettling to do ahead of the main event for us – the Rolex Fastnet Race. This is a world-renowned offshore race that runs every other year and is one of the classic races that every sailor wants to take part in. It is a 600-odd nautical mile race starting in Cowes and finishing in Plymouth after a trip across the Irish Sea and back to round the Fastnet Rock and this year 390 boats took part.

Rounding the rock at dawn in something akin to winter and feeling too green to put contacts in

The two events are very different – Cowes Week is as much (if not more) about the social as the sailing whereas the Fastnet is a challenging race that requires an incredible amount of preparation and team work. Having lived on the south coast for 15 years, Cowes Week is great as perhaps 80% of my sailing friends were in Cowes at some point during the week – so I was guaranteed to bump into people to catch up with. The racing at Cowes week tends to be scenic courses around the Solent and the start times aren’t early which gives crews plenty of time to recover from the night before.

Happy times on the Solent

The Fastnet is much more intense, which for us was non-stop for 4 days. The 600 nautical mile course is challenging and many divide it up into 5 separate races – from Cowes to the Needles and the exit of the Solent, from the Needles to Lands End, from Lands End to the Fastnet Rock, from the Fastnet Rock back to the Scilly Isles and then the final leg into Plymouth. It is essential that the crew operates a watch system – the race for us started around 1pm on the Sunday and by 7pm we had begun our watch system. Our crew of 14 was divided into 4 watches – the rota was 3 hours off, 3 hours on between 7pm and 7am and 4 hours off, 4 hours on in the daytime. 2 watches were always on deck together which meant there were enough crew to do most manoeuvres, however in the night for a spinnaker drop or change we tended to have all hands on deck.

The route, our tracked route and the busy Irish Sea

When you are off watch it is best to sleep, as you never know how challenging the conditions will be on the next watch, it is important to keep energy up.  Things don’t always go smoothly – one day we were becalmed, the next morning our mainsail fell down due to a breakage.  As a result we had to send our intrepid bowman up the mast in a rolling sea, and then we found some crew that were good at sewing… 2 hours later and we were back in the race!

Things don’t always go smoothly…

In the night there are plenty of bunks to sleep in or spinnakers to collapse onto and the motion of the boat lulls most people to sleep very quickly. In the daytime some people will return to their bunks, others will doze on deck. I felt horribly seasick for one day and so stayed on deck on watch to keep myself busy while the worst of the sickness passed – made better for dolphins and improving weather.

Creature comforts are few and far between.  Thankfully we had a crew house in Cowes week – handily located moments from the pub and supermarket! Over the years I have stayed in crew-houses all over Cowes and so am practiced at efficient use of the bathroom for showering and sharing rooms with boys. Packing is always a challenge – space is always going to be limited and whatever I take I need to be able to carry it myself, there are no trolleys here! I am terrible at living out of a bag and so the less I take the less chaotic it is. Added to this my car isn’t the most practical for transporting much kit and crew about. On the Fastnet I changed my clothes quite infrequently… We were able to shower on the boat which was a blessing but wet wipes replaced showers for the most part. The Fastnet is probably the only holiday I come back from where there is very little washing to be done – life on board is lived in thermals and sailing boots with extra layers depending on the weather!  A 65ft boat with 14 crew doesn’t offer a great deal of privacy either – everyone gets to know each other quickly and chooses their quiet corner to get away from people and sleep!

Amazing how quickly we get used to the boating way of life

Catering and cooking is not something at which I am known to excel. Aside from my baking prowess (which the crew all benefited from as part of the ‘Great Desperado Bake Off’) I tend to keep myself out of the kitchen unless I am pouring a drink. In Cowes Week it was seen as great progress that I did the washing up in the crew house, and I continued to do this throughout the Fastnet in the galley. During the Fastnet I was the appointed sous chef and so had a busy time helping our masterchef look after the 14 crew. Every day is a learning day when it comes to cooking – in the fortnight I picked up two new recipes to add to my repertoire thanks to some patient tutoring – chicken schnitzel and meatballs – as well as amazing myself that it is possible to cook a fish and chip supper on board the boat!

The galley is a busy and important place

We are lucky on Desperado that we can have proper meals 3 times a day, many of the boats racing would have been eating ‘just add boiling water’ suppers. We were also able to dine at the table in the saloon (sometimes with wine) or eat out on deck with plate, knife and fork.  The biggest success in the galley was however the ginger, lemon and honey tea – inspired, refreshing, warming and much-loved by the whole crew (just really time-consuming to make, especially on an angle in the dark wearing a head-torch)!

Dressing up on Desperado is something of a tradition and adds a touch of class to the racing – just look how well we scrub up after 4 days at sea.

The dashing Desperado crew always bring a sense of class and tradition to the Fastnet

Normally the crew will be in black tie or dinner dress for the rounding of the rock. This year however we had quite a lot going on – the sea state was pretty rough and a handful of us were focussing on the horizon hoping our seasickness would pass. Our mainsail broke just before the rounding as well (fortunately we still had our genoa and mizzen mast to keep us going at good speed) so we were focussed on boat speed and mending and sending the bowman up the mast to retrieve the missing pieces. Instead we dressed up for the race finish – sailing into Plymouth in our finery. The galley became a binbag bow-tie production line for the crew that hadn’t brought dinner jackets with them and I donned a dress along with the other lady sailing with us.  We also have a mascot – Joe the life-sized gorilla. He does of course attract much attention and we have a lot of fun with him on the boat. He is mostly found sitting on the transom of the boat (unless the weather gets very wet) and so ensuring he’s fully kitted up in waterproof clothing and a life jacket is essential. He also attracts plenty of attention ashore!

Meet Joe – the 15th member of our crew

Looking at your best for the most part is pretty difficult indeed.  I’m by no means a girly girl but even so it is rare for me to leave the house without looking smart, a pair of high heels, a fancy handbag and some make-up.  Sailing doesn’t give this opportunity – I did put make-up on one morning of Cowes Week but was caught and ridiculed which put pay to any more attempts!  For the 4 days of the Fastnet I wore thermal tights and tops, covered with tshirts and shorts in the daytime and a fleecy onesy at night to keep warm – none of which was flattering. Jackets, gillets and waterproof layers were then added depending on the weather, along with a life-jacket and life-line at night.  There aren’t very many mirrors on the boat so I’m not really sure how bad I looked, but one hair wash in 4 days tells me it can’t have been good.  When we are woken up to come on watch we are given 10 minutes to get up, washed, dressed and on deck.  On the final morning I had decided that I didn’t want to spend time down below as the sea state was bouncy, so I got up, grabbed all my clothes and layers and headed straight out on deck.  I must have looked pretty dog-eared before I managed to sort myself slowly out – in fact it was even commented on!

The weather looking lovely (no need to scare you with one of me looking far from at my best)

Driving (helming) the boat is reserved for the experts as it isn’t easy to do well.  Everyone on the boat has their own role – mine is to run ‘the pit’ which means being responsible for all the halyards as we do sail changes and tweaking of the trim.  For the Fastnet the driving was shared by 4. It is very physical when it is windy and when the wind is very light it brings different challenges and needs massive amounts of concentration. I have never been a helm but it is always a treat to get to steer. In Cowes week I parked the boat on the dock twice (under careful tuition with a lot of panic from me that it might go wrong) and then during the closing phases of the race into Plymouth (when everyone was getting dressed for the ocassion) I also got the chance to have a quick steer as we came towards the finish with our kite up.  Lots of fun – plenty of photos of course to prove it happened!

Someone has to helm the boat 24 hours a day

Champagne is always a winner, after all it is my tipple of choice. During Cowes week there was one day where racing was cancelled due to no wind. We had some compass calibration work to do and so headed out into the Solent for a few hours.  Much tea was drunk and more cake was eaten whilst we drove round in circles sorting out the instruments. At one point I was asked to “make myself useful” – this worried me as that could mean anything (the worst of which would be to clean the heads/toilets). Thankfully the request was to locate the champagne flutes (yes, we race with these on board) and a bottle of chilled Bollinger and ensure that the crew were suitably watered. A lovely way to spend an afternoon! I suspect the fizz gave me the courage to park the boat! After the finish of the Fastnet we all enjoyed champagne on the boat reminiscing about our trip and picking the ‘man of the yacht’. Plenty of humour and fun.

Champagne sailing (darling)

Fun and banter is what draws me most to sailing especially when sailing offshore with a great group of people – the cameraderie and humour is one of the highlights, off the water too.

Smiling all the time

In April we were 14 people that had barely met, and having now lived out of each others pockets with limited privacy and space, I am lucky to have a fabulous new group of friends.  There is always plenty of banter at sea – much of it completely inappropriate and rude of course – but it is essential to having fun, no one can take themselves too seriously and sitting on the rail or in the cockpit in the pouring rain or chill of night it is amazing how much chatter there is!  What I like most is that offshore, there is no 3G and no contact with the outside world – it’s just the crew, having fun, offline.  And that really is a true luxury!

Sailing, friends and having fun go hand in hand, with a little team work and focus

What a fantastic experience as part of my #Take12Trips – challenging, fun, character building, making new friends, and restorative in a way that can’t be beaten – big grins and happy memories! I never take for granted the travel that I do, this even more so – a sailing delight, I’ve finally got my bounce back!

There are good ships and wood ships and ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friend ships and forever may it be

With thanks to the crew for photos which they will recognise as theirs, thank goodness for smartphones and large memory cards!