I’m up before 5am so that I can do some work before the Classic Yacht Regatta Day 1 begins. I’m to report for duty around 08:00, and I think I’ll have a break after the morning’s work so that I can return to the boat and do some more work before going back to work at the regatta in the afternoon.
We had some showers just now, but the sun is peeking out between the clouds and the weather forecast is for very light winds. That should make for some very slow racing. The classic yachts are all quite heavy and cumbersome for their size when compared to modern boats. They scoff at heavy weather but without some significant wind they just sort of sit there, unmoving.
English Harbour
I showed up for my work early, earlier than most other volunteers and way before the coffee was ready. There was time to watch the boats leave the docks and certainly they did not require our assistance to depart. I used the time after the starts to walk up to Fort Berkeley and get some pictures before returning to our work station at the café in Nelson’s Dockyard.
I had one task from Clare, I had to hasten back to Falmouth Harbour on foot, get in my dinghy and find the big yacht club tender, which was somewhere in the harbour, to get their (lots of expletives deleted) in gear and go out to move the marks. I found them in time and returned to English Harbour, getting back just in time to avoid the showers passing through.
Afternoon
In the afternoon the boats started trickling, then pouring in. I had had my doubts about our role as “dinghy wranglers”. It soon became clear that despite the relatively light winds we were needed to help pick up lines from moorings and to push on the stern and bow sections of the ungainly boats; acting as mobile bow-thrusters. This work took most of the afternoon and we had some pretty heavy boats to move. One in particular (not really a classic, but a heavy rusty old fishing boat) took 2 dinghies with 20HP each just to keep in place; that docking maneuver took a good half-hour!
Evening
I socialized into the early evening before returning to Zanshin in order to cook dinner. I got lazy and ended up “cooking” a cheese and onion sandwich.
A gallery of all of the images from all of the Regatta days can be found here.