Monday, August 25, 2014

Win at all costs

Amadea versus Wave Warrior, I can tell you who would win. If you had been on the Hoe or anywhere with a view of Plymouth Sound you couldn't have missed the anchored Phoenix cruise ship Amadea standing at 192 metres long. I can tell you it is even more imposing close up as I looked over from my father’s fifteen foot dinghy and that was from half a mile away, as close as we dared get.

I was fulfilling my sailing fix that day as a couple of hours later I was back out on the water in something more substantial, the racing yacht Wave Warrior. Having come straight from a dinghy the yacht seemed so big and stable. This time we were on the water with more of a purpose - it was Summer Series race night. The sailing conditions were perfect and we had two races back to back; the first one just a single lap in towards the land then back out and around the Breakwater.

The rules of the water state that sail boats have right of way over motor powered vessels, however, this does not include ships as large as Amadea. The cruise ship pulled up her anchor and began her journey out to the Channel in perfect time for us to avoid her and hindered some of our competitors behind us; that was until we rounded our mark and both headed for the west side of the breakwater. The mindset 'win at all costs' was almost taken one step too far by our skipper, and Wave Warriors' owner Angus McPhie, as we were on course for a very close shave with a twenty-eight thousand tonne ship. We had a ten second horn blast, five short blasts followed by a desperate final blast plus a warning from the pilot ship which managed to push us in the wrong direction - under sail with a spinnaker flying there are only certain angles you can make. As crew we had faith in Angus but I knew we were pushing our luck. I looked up to see the bow wave of the massive ship and all we could do was hope.

Thankfully the wind didn't drop - we made it through by the skin of our teeth and were not the next day’s headlines.