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Saturday 7th January was the annual pilgrimage to Queen Mary Sailing Club for the 39th Bloody Mary.
Pat Overs took his Solo and arrived early at the club. Gareth arrived a few minutes later with Toby and Gareth's new Hornet. Pat got his boat near to the launch area to prevent a repeat of last year's queuing behind Merlins and B14s at the slip way. Gareth and Toby's Hornet is part way through a major re-fit and as such they set about screwing in the last few fittings before their first sail in the boat and trying to work out which spinnaker had the fewest holes in it.
The Bloody Mary is a 155 minute pursuit race with Toppers as the first start. Pat started 15 minutes later with Toby and Gareth having practised a few tacks and a spinnaker hoist starting 36 minutes after the Toppers. At the start of the race the wind was blowing force 4-5, but with a balmy 10 degrees. Due to the wind direction, there were a number of very gusty and shifty parts of the lake. The course had two short beats, some runs, broad reaches and a number of non spinnaker reaches.
The biggest issue to contend with at the Bloody Mary is traffic in the form of 302 boats this year. Added to this some large fleets which create a large wall of boats to get past. Being a pursuit race there are always slower boats to overtake and faster boats trying to overtake you. The key thing is trying to keep your air clear and not get tangled with boats. This isn't always easy when foiling Moths travelling at 20 knots trying to get in front of you on a downwind leg and then stopping as they sail into your wind shadow. At the Bloody Mary there are normally a number of in-experienced racers who panic when presented with 30 boats trying to gybe at the same mark. Then added to this, mainly due to the gusts you have unexpected capsizes in front of you causing you to have to think and react quickly.
Having said this, all three Paxton sailors came off the water with big smiles, but feeling worn out having sailed hard for the entire race to make it to the finish and having dealt with all the challenges presented. This becomes more impressive when you see that 52 out of the 302 entries didn't finish the race. Neither boat was very sure where they had finished. When the results were published Pat Overs was placed 184th with Toby and Gareth 89th.
More pictures of the Bloody Mary here
Official Yachts and Yachting Report here
This has put Pat into the lead for the Russell Trophy. The next event is the Steve Nicholson Memorial Race at Northampton Sailing Club on Saturday 28th January.
Provisional Russell Trophy Results here
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