Racing cancelled for 12s

But a practice race was held, reports Andy Rice from an event-filled day on board Flica II

We tacked across onto port and took a couple of transoms to book our slot on the final starboard layline. We overtacked the layline slightly and Torben Grael tacked the pale green classic Nyala beneath us. We were neck and neck for the lead as we rounded the first windward mark under the island shore near Osborne House.

Grael, with four Olympic medals to our Thierry's two, luffed us a couple of times, asserting his position as the boat with rights. Alex matched his every move until we bore away around the spacer mark for the downwind leg. Now we were not looking so clever with our mainsail reef, with the pack closing up on us from behind. Nyala stretched away from us, her boom skying in the air just as our own does on Flica II. Shame we haven't got a boom vang. Life would feel a lot safer sailing dead downwind with a tighter leech, but boom vangs are a bit nouveau, not very classic, really.

Grael gybed ahead of us, as did the blue boat that had drawn level with us to windward. But we held rights and one-gybed it on starboard all the way down to the leeward mark. I stepped to the back of the bus and clung on to the backstay for the gybe, clutching my handheld GPS and flapping charts. Gybe went well, still in second, and tacked straight round the leeward mark while Nyala and the blue boat carried on on port tack.
Now we're looking good again, and stretching our legs in clear air out towards our preferred left-hand side. This is the final beat now, a simple three-leg practice race, and we’re back in contention for the lead with Nyala. And then we tack. "Man overboard!" In a blink, Firus, one of our grinders, is 50 metres behind the yacht, his arms flailing in the waves, and yelling his head off, as you would if you found yourself in that situation.

Suddenly this is not a great time to be wearing black offshore gear, even if it does look good in Cowes Yacht Haven. We bear away almost immediately but he is now 100 metres away. Fortunately a RIB is in close proximity and responds to our yells for assistance. Within three minutes, a dripping Firus is back on board courtesy of the RIB crew. Firus still has that fixed grin on his face, seemingly unfazed by the drama. The freeing genoa sheet had whipped him off the deck, he hadn’t stood a chance. We have some serious thinking to do about how we’re going to avoid it happening again.

So, premature end of practice race for Flica II, but never mind. Nyala goes on to win, but after some ragged practice days we were pretty well on top of our game, that little MOB incident discounted. Little time to dwell on all that, though, as we head down for the start of Race 1 proper. "We are planning on sounding the Attention Signal at 1230, less than 10 minutes from now," comes the VHF call from Jubilee Three, our race committee.

We look at each other somewhat bemused. The wind is gusting up to 28 knots now and consistently above 25 knots. Australia II comes on the line. They voice the same concerns that we have. Five minutes later, Jubilee Three agrees, and cancels racing for the day. A shame, but definitely the right decision, bearing in mind the amount of carnage that has gone on in the Solent today.

I've heard a crewman on Victory lost the top off his finger today, and bearing in mind what happened to us it's easy to see how something like that could happen. Trivia, one of our rivals in the Classic division, didn’t even make the start after her gooseneck blew up. Still, that's preferable to running hard aground or busting your mast, as happened in some of the other divisions today. All things considered, I think the 12s got off quite lightly.