Before we get into regatta stories, just check out the baby seat on this scooter. On closer examination, we also found a little seat belt.
On the Saturday, Alison started her tender driving lessons. The first lesson was how to fix a motor with only a pair of sunglasses as the tool kit. After this, it was how not to capsize. The day was spent converting El Coyote back from a cruise boat to a race boat.
Fortunately, Sunday was only practise racing, because as you can see Tony (lying down) was taking it easy on spinnaker trimming.
Sunday night after practice racing, just a few gentle beers on the beach. Not bad heh?
This was us going full bore in race trim. Weight on the rail as instructed to give us extra speed.
After a hard days racing, Chris and Thane enjoying a bite and a beer. This hospitality continued all week.
No, not Einstein, this is Kev our tactician doing an impression of a Thai boy's hairstyle.
This was the start of one of our races. It was very competitive. On the first day, we had windward - leeward racing (or round the cans for you land lubbers), second and third days were passage races, day four was a rest day. Day five was a race round Ko Samui Island itself. We chose to start at 8am, as the finish line was going to close at 6.30pm regardless. We felt we needed all of this time to get round the island. We had slight disadvantage starting early, as the forecast was for the winds to pick up later. More of this later.
Australian Maid, one of the boats competing in our class.
Ichiban, a boat we raced against in a previous regatta.
This is Cliff, showing Tony how to trim a spinnaker in proper racing mode.
This is Ichiban catching us up. We were absolutely flying, look at the wake coming off our stern.
This is Mikki and Garry after a race. She gave Garry a T shirt which he is very proud of, maybe you will see it one day...........
Back to the "round the island" race. This was our start, up at 5am, on the beach for 6.30am.
This was taken during the "round the island" race. Despite our early start, the wind had started to die off and the swanky race boats began to catch us. However, they don't always get it right despite fully trained professional crews with all the best equipment. This is Borocay, one of the top boats in Asia, stuck on a rock. We had seen it on our chart. Wonder why they didn't?
Still "round the island", we ran into a squall. The boat above is Hifi, that had just overtaken us. Not a problem as we were in a different racing class to them. The rest of our class at this point were five miles behind. We had the win in the bag. Shortly after this, the wind died and the race officials decided to abandon the race! We could see the finish line approximately half a mile away. Remember, the finishing line was supposed to stay open until 6.30pm and it was abandoned at 4.45pm! Very frustrating, finish line in sight, the rest of the fleet 5 miles behind. But heh, that's racing. Nevertheless, we had some very supportive comments from our fellow competitors.
As mentioned previously, some parts of Coyote are difficult to access. This is Tony in the anchor locker.
Chris and Hutch enjoying a drink, this time without falling off a motorbike! Chris, hope you feel better soon!
This is the second time that a Coyote shirt was on stage to collect a second place trophy. Overall, we finished fourth. Good result but if the abandoned race had finished, we would have been second.
After the racing was over, it was time to pack up and go back to Pattaya. Gary had blagged a spare boom off another boat. Fun and games loading it first onto the tender, then onto Coyote.The journey back was absolutley amazing. We had the wind on the beam, travelled 178 nautical miles in 24 hours and 193 miles before we put in our first gybe. The night sail was terrific, with a clear sky and a full moon. It was almost like daylight and as the sea was a little rough, there were hardly any fishing boats to dodge around. Talking of fishing, Gary did buy a new lure and as luck would have it, we got a bite on the way back. As always, the one that got away was the biggest. In truth it was indeed huge, but we didn't get the chance to eat it.
And finally, check out fellow sailor Tony, drumming his socks off in the Coyote bar in Samui.
After sailing back to Pattaya, we hung around a few days, did some work, had a party and relaxed. We have since moved on and are now in Cyprus. We have a few thank yous to our friends in Thailand.
Gary, thanks for enabling us and the other Coyote crew members by providing a brilliant boat, a sense of humour and a competitive spirit. By the way, is the engine fixed yet?
Adrian, thanks for training Garry on boat repairing skills, the loan of your men and your tools.
Scott, thanks for the enthusiasm, encouragement and never ending smile.
Paul and Jojo, thanks for looking after us and putting on a great party for our last night in Thailand.
Tony, thanks for letting us chill out round your pool, and for the loan of your car and Schumacker.
Finally, thanks to all our fellow El Coyote crew. It was great sailing with you and we look forward to seeing you again.
Just popping down the job centre, will be in touch soon.
Garry and Alison
2 comments:
What I can't understand is that it's obviously hard graft sailing the boats, but how can you manage to sail and provide us all with the pictorial evidence? Carolyn x
You are absolutely right. The best pictures we missed were those on the start line. It's a little tricky to take pictures with a long piece of rope running between your hands that you have to pull on really hard at any specific minute.
Just as a safe precaution I tied the camera onto my shorts so if the camera went overboard, then I would go with it!
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