There are many lessons to be learnt from extrapolating an idea into a reality. Some are hard lessons, some come with a cost. We don’t live in an ideal world and my vision of ‘racing my cruising catamaran’ involved comfortable conditions and systems that didn’t fail – mainly because they had all worked over the past three years of cruising.
Favourite Child, Catherine and my Roger Hill 15.9m cruising catamaran, recently competed in the Airle Beach Race Week in the Whitsunday islands, North Queensland, Australia. It was a learning curve and a broad experience. I thought I would share the reality, warts and all.
I entered the Performance Handicap passage division. Entry to Airlie Beach Race Week (ABRW) cost $650 for a 52ft Cat. The bigger the boat the more the cost. I’m not sure why as the background organisation was identical. I imagine it is because people assume you can afford to pay more. Cruisers are not generally like that – some sail on a tight budget and this entry might keep them cruising for a month or more. The Notice of Race and Sailing Instructions also did not give you the costs – until you are filling in the entry form online when they pop up.
We decided to take a sailing club mooring, just off the club. Our entry was too late to get a marina berth and I prefer a mooring or anchoring anyway. Not quite as convenient but less docking stress and a lot cheaper. I initially planned of racing with a crew of 6-8. We ended up with 10-11 which was even more fun and turned out to be advantageous when things went wrong. With such a big crew I knew some of the bar and meals tab would be high. How yachts organise their crew varies enormously. In some of the monohull divisions there were professional crew members. Some had people paying to race, some sharing costs. Most had friends and family racing with them for the fun of it. Favourite Child was definitely the latter.
Through a crew member who was a Whitsunday Sailing Club member, I discovered that members get a 30% discount on meals and drinks – and full membership was $300 and it turned out to be a great investment. This club knows how to encourage members in the bar and restaurant!
The forecast for the weeks racing was wind, wind and more wind. Not what I was hoping or planning for. In my division there were eight multihulls ranging from a 42ft Pescott Whitehaven, (Alba Dash) to a 60ft Lagoon (Social Platform) We had a Young 57 (Earthling) – light fast and huge, and a Crowther 56 podcat (Room with a View) – now nearly 40 years old and looking awesome. Also amongst the mix was a Schionning waterline 1480 (Freedom Express), a Lidgard 52 (Avalance), a Grainger Raku 48 (Mint) and finally, Favourite Child.
Favourite Child had been measured for an Offshore Multihull Rating in 2024 – 0.704 – and as we were the most current one, we probably became the yardstick. Most of the rest of the division did not have a handicap and these were applied on a best calculated approximation and the handicap modified as the races progressed. The idea was to keep the ‘corrected finish times’ as close a possible. The mystery of handicapping is beyond my remit, and it is probably done on an algorithm these days. Throughout the regatta our handicap varied by less than 0.05, while those around us varied by as much as 0.24. How the handicap is applied is simple. Your finishing time is multiplied by your handicap to give corrected time.
The racing. The first reality check. When cruising I generally start with the smallest sail set and increase as needed. When racing, we started with full rig every day except one – on that day it was over 20 knots true at the race start so I put in a ‘flattening reef’ which took out about 8m2 of mainsail area
Every other day it was full main and jib at the start. Forecasts were18-24 knots. It was with some trepidation that we got amongst the jostling big cats on a start line, all with considerable momentum and slower manoeuvring ability. It made for an interesting mindset. We didn’t play conservative. I have done hundreds of starts over the years and we had five crew with extensive catamaran racing experience. They made calls from each corner of the boat. During one wild start Earthling attempted to drive over us before the line and we forced them up. At the same time Social Platform did the same to us and on that start both Favourite Child and Earthing broke the line. They tacked and went around the start boat, we dropped back, gybed and ducked back below the line and started on port tack. Fortunately, port tack was favoured, and we were third around the first mark.
Some started conservatively, hanging back, and as the fleet had varied speeds and spread out fairly quickly, there was not a lot of time lost by not being on the line, on the gun. ABRW had over 140 yachts racing and the timed fleet starts meant only the first fleet had clear air. The rest of us (we were fourth starting fleet) worked the disturbed wind.
The races were ‘passage races’ – out into Molle Passage or Whitsunday passage and around islands. Inevitably here the wind strength increased, the waves picked up and when wind and tide fought each other the seas became steep and short. Whenever possible we flew spinnaker or screecher off the wind. We never usually fly these in 18 – 22 true. It was in these situations the weak points were revealed.
The list:
Screecher sheet line – broke at knot.
Screecher tack line – shredded and tore, tearing the furling drum base off.
Jib sheet outhaul blocks – the original two collapsed, then the replacement two collapsed until finally we found a set that could take the loads.
Luck was on our side. No injuries occurred and each time the heavily loaded screecher decided not to play ball the crew fired into action. When the furling drum was damaged we couldn’t furl the screecher in. We were in 20 plus knots, full main and belting on a tight reach. The sail was hauled to deck behind the mainsail, then manhandled into the cockpit and cabin (where the 124m2 sail filled all available space). Whilst crew were hauling to sail clear, others got the jib unfurled and the racing continued.
During a wild race into Whitsunday Passage we passed the Stealth 12.5m catamaran ‘Fez’ capsized. Fez was a light performance catamaran in the division above us. All crew were okay but she was not salvaged for many days and had considerable damage.
We had two ‘near miss’ incidents .
The first was when Favourite Child was belting to windward in the Whitsunday Passage at 9-10 knots into steep short seas. We were on Starboard tack and the Schionning 1480 ‘Freedom Express’ was fast approaching on Port. I’m not sure if they saw us and by the time they heard our ‘STARBOARD’ calls and put in a toss it was getting tight. Too tight for me to bear down and as they went into a tack it appeared they had something amiss. I tacked Favourite Child around as fast as I could, Freedom Express went into irons and our stern missed their bow by metres as we turned. Fortunately, Favourite Child nearly never fails to tack. Our 15,000kg momentum drives her through and around every time. I’m sure all my crew had hammering hearts at that point.
It turned out ‘Freedom Express’ had a centreboard problem and couldn’t tack. ‘Prepare for the unexpected’ is a mantra I follow, and I should have avoided earlier but in the heat of racing that option wasn’t on my mind.
Incident number two was also of my own making. At White Rock we were close racing the Lidgard 52 ‘Avalanche’. We had to round white rock to port and Avalanche tacked below and ahead of us and were coming into the rock on starboard. I decided to tack just below them. It meant we were in the lead and in control – except it was a tight angle to the rock. The tide was against us. Favourite Child slowly slipped to leeward and so did Avalanche in our dirty wind. One of my crew members was John Cadwallader, a fellow multihuller who had competed in the Around Australia Race against Catherine and I on his trimaran ‘St Therese’. He was the local knowledge expert and called to be wary of the shingly outcropping at White Rock. We touched, scrapped gently the port centreboard, I yelled ‘Water’ as Avalanche was hot on our stern as I tacked. They were attentive so did the same. Fortunately. On later inspection we only removed a bit of antifouling from the daggerboard, but it could have been much worse. I should have dived below Avalanche earlier and played it safe on the rounding.
From a performance viewpoint, we sailed full rig in up to 30 knots apparent and we were trimming in these conditions. We found the mainsail worked best when sailing to windward with the traveller about 50cm to windward putting a nice twist in the top of the sail and good flow. We never had to feather or spill wind despite the bullets. One of the advantages of being a cruising boat with a washing machine and coffee maker!
We used our new top-down furling spinnaker on the deep runs and became smooth and competent in gybing this. We also found the ‘time to furl’ was important so we didn’t wallow downwind under jib and main alone. We did not have the pace off the wind in comparison to some of the other yachts in our division, many who had huge kites. My sailmaker made my spinnaker for shorthanded cruising, for which it is ideal. I had to keep reminding myself of this!
Lessons learned were invaluable. I now look more critically at sheets and halyards with a replacement list. Waiting until they age and look like them may break is not an option anymore!
I loved the camaraderie and skill development amongst the crew. Our youngest crewmember was 15. Our oldest was John (80 something). The roles were distributed on skill set with those who had previous racing experience mentoring those that had none or little. As the series progressed everyone developed confidence in the boat and their roles. We had trimmers on main, jib, screecher and spinnaker. The foredeck (adventure land) crew handled sail changes and retrieval (and incident management). My sister-law-law was the one monohull sailor, whose extensive racing experience was with boats that heeled. She was eventually multihull mainsail trimming like a champ. She also called the wind bullets for me which helped enormously on the crowded course. We were sailing in a fleet of 140 yachts so at times it was semi-controlled chaos.
Everyone worked as a team, sorted jobs, offered advice and input. Catherine was a godsend aboard with drinks, snacks and the ever ready after race rum. She has an eye for any boat heading our way and made sure I was aware of them. You can never have too much information given to you on the helm!
For the series our race placings were 4,2,2,3,4,4 – putting us equal first with ‘Social Platform’ who placed 6,6,4,2,2,1. They beat us on countback – having the most firsts. The catamaran Alba Dash broke both daggerboards and two of their expewrienced crew moved onto Social Platform and hauled out screechers and spinnakers for the last three races. In any handicap series it is always good to continue to get better! I was happy with second place.
We survived the regatta, had meaningful, memorable experiences and spent time having an adventure with family and friends. Favourite Child a better yacht for it, and, hopefully, so is her skipper.
