With Alacrity – Double Handed Virgins No More!

We have been watching the Royal Southampton YC double handed series for some time as they really do seem to have built a decent event with big turnouts and a fiercely contested series. Now that our hectic season which has included Antigua week (sailing on Alliance, another Sigma 38), Cork Week and Cowes Week is finally slowing down we ran out of excuses and entered the Nab Double as our first ever foray into 2 handed sailing. The rumour that we had just run out of friends to play with us also has a grain of truth to it!

It was really a very enjoyable day. It helped that the wind was coming from just East of South meaning that you could lay the Nab tower on a long starboard tack which turned into a fetch once out of the Solent. One tack around the Nab, then kites up for a blistering spinnaker broad reach back to the finish at Hillhead. Festina Lente came out to play as well and they were as ever a good benchmark of how quick you should be going!

The biased start line was busy with plenty of boats up on the line but with a refreshing lack of shouting. We were a tad early and had to put the breaks on in the last 30 seconds which meant Festina, who came up with speed, sailed through to leeward and popped out ahead whilst we spent the next 10 minutes fighting our way out of dirty air. The wind was quite gusty between 12 & 17 knots so spent the next half hour working out how to keep the boat going fast – you need a lot more easing of the mainsheet and cracking off for speed than when you have half a tonne of crew ballast on the rail!

Once clear of the Solent the Sigma 38s came into their own in the bigger waves as we left the rest of our class behind for the long leg to the Nab against the tide. Once around though it was kites up (hmm maybe slightly slower than usual, but better safe than sorry) and we even had time to break out the sandwiches before the broad reach turned into a closer reach with wind touching 20 knots as we entered the Solent.

After a surprisingly quick 4 hour race Festina finished 3.5 minutes ahead to win the 23 strong class 2, we were chuffed to be close enough to take 2^nd place on handicap to make it a clean sweep for Sigma 38s.

I think we will be doing some more double handed racing and can highly recommend it. The big plus points are:

· Logistics is much easier to go sailing with just two people (much as I love our crew it does take a lot of organising to go racing normally)

· The RSYC series has a good turn out that make it worthwhile to go racing

· You do get a good workout when racing 2 up as our aching limbs this week demonstrate

· I think the Sigma 38 is quite well suited to double handed sailing and clearly has the potential to do well