The 11th annual Cape Point Challenge took place on Saturday 2nd April in what can only be described as "awesome". Perhaps a bit too awesome for many, as only some 30 boats of the 50 odd entries finished the 85km race to the point and back.
The race started in 18-20knots with 2-2,5m swell running, with a 1 ft chop running crosswise over the swell, making for interesting times for those of us who do most of our sailing on a pond. The F16 class was represented by 5 spinnaker Mozzies, a low turnout due to the previous weekend`s (Easter) 4 day regatta. The rest of the fleet was made up of 30+ Hobie 16`s, 4 or 5 Hobie Tigers, 3 Hobie 18`s with spinnakers, and a few other boats such as a Hobie Pacific. The Tigers started an hour after the rest of the fleet to give the slow boats a chance at line honours. Peter and I decided to also give the rest of the fleet a head-start by leaving the beach too late to make the start, and got off the line about 4 minutes after the fleet. Talk about sailing to your handicap ! Sarel and George made the start, while Danie was still rigging, so only 4 mozzies were left in the race. The first mark of the course was Roman Rock Lighthouse, which stands out alone in the sea on a rocky outcrop. We hugged the shoreline all the way into Simonstown, just outside the beach-break,in very strong gusty winds (we let the jib just flap on occasion, driving off the main only), until we ran out of water and had to tack just before Simonstown harbour, which gave us a good lay-line to inside of Roman Rock. In spite of starting late with the last few boats we had managed to haul in a large portion of the Hobie 16 fleet at this stage. Then on to Miller`s Point, taking short tacks out to sea and then back to hug the cliffs, where the best breeze is known to be, and the lift from the cliff-face helps your upwind progress. As we were approaching Millers, we had passed all the Hobie 16`s except for the top 3 finishers, so had made very good progress, and had also passed the two remaining Hobie 18`s and the Hobie Pacific. George was just ahead of us, and we had to tack below him at one stage, so had caught up to him as well. Sarel was the second boat at this stage, about 500m ahead of us, with only Sean Ferry on a Hobie 16 ahead of him (Sean is a past multiple World Champ and ISAF world champ, and is hard to beat !) We tacked over to the layline to Miller`s, only to find we had overstood by quite a lot, so I footed off onto a screaming close-reach to get down to the mark, when disaster struck. Claudia`s feet were taken right off the boat by a big wave, and she fell against the hull, punching a large hole just below the deck with her trapeze hook. (NOW I`m looking at the alternative systems !). I heard the crunch of plywood, took one look at it, and said “right, lets get home”. We put the kite up and had an awesome surfing ride of about 20km back to the beach at Fish-Hoek, and only took about 2 litres of water, but would have taken a lot more if we had tried to carry on upwind. Sarel got to the Point still behind Sean Ferry, and couldn`t pass him downwind despite the advantage of the spinnaker, what we found is that with the short steep swell it was difficult to go for too much speed, and had to run quite deep to avoid surfing too fast down a wave and into the back of the next one. Sarel hit the beach in 2nd place on line in a time of 3hours and 8minutes, but corrected out for 3rd place overall, so he managed to break away from the 2nd placed Hobie 16 with enough clearance to beat him on handicap, while one Hobie Tiger beat him on corrected time. George finished in 2nd place in the F16 Mozzie fleet after struggling with his spinnaker chute and being unable to hoist the kite, while Peter elected not to hoist his on the grounds of the conditions, and the fact that his crew was seasick, and came in 3rd. I`m not sure of their positions in the fleet, but will post those when I get them.
I learned a few things from this regatta : 1) The Mozzie is better at handling these conditions than I`d imagined. I thought the Hobie`s would be better suited to them and would walk away from us, when in fact the opposite occurred. 2) Stainless steel trapeze hooks are stronger than plywood hulls. I`m looking at the alternatives. 3) Free whisky on Friday night before the race is not always a good thing.
Thanks to Fish Hoek Beach Sailing Club for hosting this race once again, I`ll be back next year, and hope the conditions are the same.
Here are the results. No elapsed times, I don`t believe the organisers will give them to me, as they usually give us a handicap rating that helps the Hobie sailors a little more than it should, hey, we don`t mind. Makes us sail harder. I`m pretty peeved I couldn`t finish as I believe I would have been right behind Hobie no. 777, or might have passed him even, and been around 5th place. For the record, the first Mozzie hit the beach 2nd on line, and was 3rd on corrected time. The other Mozzies (George & Peter) who finished, came in 15th and 20th, but never flew their spinnakers.
pic of George & Mel (brothers who haven`t sailed together for about 10 years) coming out of Buffels Bay. All the pics were taken there except the start (obviously ). The water looks pretty flat there compared to what we experienced in the early stage of the race, might be sheltered by the point.
). The water looks pretty flat there compared to what we experienced in the early stage of the race, might be sheltered by the point.