John Mountain Cup 2013
Thursday 3rd April 2014 – Gone to his Head.
“As Skipper I am allowed to keelhaul you if you don’t behave. Alternatively, I might place you on loo cleaning duty, so take a toothbrush!” Herein proof that some would-be skippers completely lose their sense of humour at the slightest sign of a misdemeanor from the married quarter. Excusable perhaps, being that the 2013 JMC was 6 months delayed and the tension has been building steadily.
Notwithstanding, the bags were packed, the victualing acquired and all of the Solent’s rivers, creeks and sea-like fissures had been plotted measured and graphed to within a centimetre of their lapping shorelines.
The alarm had been set for 6am for on the morrow we were to set sail for who-knows-where!
Friday 4th April 2014 – Dances with wolves, sails with tankers
At the Hamble it seemed Skipper was scuppered in his wish to get going as soon as the last crew member arrived. We found our charter company had packed the JMC yachts into the smallest possible space (had this predicament been prearranged by The Committee we wondered) with our Beneteau, ‘Apres Le Vent’, the most accessible by land but the most inaccessible for exiting the pontoon.
However, following the handover, safety brief, and numerous builders’ intakes of breath, the momentary, spaghetti-like warps transformed into a perfect swan-like exit from the pontoon. Just as well really as we were moored inches away from the marina’s bar veranda and the inevitable curious eyes of the customers!
Dinner on the hoof and the first letter.
With a passage plan to guide us out of the Hamble and our curry heating up for supper on the hoof, the crew waited with baited breath for the first envelope order from our adjudicator. When it came it seemed to be a fairly innocuous ‘find this point given these co-ordinates’ except there was an additional ‘oh and, by the way, we have disabled the electronic navigational aids’.
DINNER’S READY!
(Girls, you know the feeling. you’ve spent ages cooking dinner and without fail, the minute it’s ready the family have all gone off and found something else to do.)
We were getting on quite nicely, taking care not to impede the usual Solent traffic. However, just as we had finished the task, passing Calshot, we noticed that there was a big black hole where Cowes used to be. **? Further inspection revealed the ‘hole’ to be a rather large oil tanker looming. No probs., we thought, we’re safely out of the deep water channel. At the same time though, our heads spun round to see a motor boat with an ominous flashing blue light pirouetting spectacularly on his rudder,(hand-brake turn style) and inches from our stern, to make sure we were safe and to deliver a document.
Skipper’s first thought was ‘Blast! Not another ruddy envelope…’ We thought this was a rather 007 method of giving us our next JMC envelope but obviously The Committee wanted to impress. Our minds boggled, how would they top that with other clues? Her Majesty leaping out of a helicopter and parachuting onto the deck, perhaps?
We opened the document to see a brochure explaining the Solent precautionary channel. Our adjudicator’s Litter Picker ditty (previously blogged) will explain in more detail and how tremendously well we did with the task…
Saturday 5th April 2014 – Fun, frolics and failures a-plenty
The day began with something not seen for a long time on a Saturday morning: 07:00 on the clock face and an enthusiastic Michael taking notes from the 07:30 weather forecast.
Our adjudicator proceeded to ensure the rest of the crew were fully awake with a startling visual announcement. Enter stage right into the central saloon garbed in a shocking fluorescent turquoise outfit. The effect was similar to the arrival of Lee Van Cleef into town upon a frothing stallion bursting through the western saloon doors, gun in one hand and wanted poster in the other. Speechless with wonder, we took the poster which turned out not to be a wanted mug shot but another of the dreaded quests!
Howard Blumenthal calmed the fray with a delightful nouvelle cuisine-style Oeufs et du Bacon Pain avec café au lait. Yum!
Suitably refreshed we began the day’s tasks showing off our boat-handling 
skills in the Medina River. However, the day progressed steadily downhill; not only did our every means of assisted propulsion and holding completely fail, the weather degenerated into a foggy, wet mess too!
Still, we passed our final tasks of the day with great success resulting in a safe evening passage and mooring with just enough time to hang up our damp clothes and head out for a very welcome dinner. From feeling like ancient mariners, the evening evolved with salty seadog odes and songs. Oh yes, the RBYC know how to give a very good account of themselves!
Returning to our yacht was like taking a step into Widow Twanky’s Chinese Laundry. Our oilies, hanging everywhere, were drying out nicely with the aid of the on-board heating but the sauna-like atmosphere was stifling and the only thing missing was the Chinese patois and steaming washing kettles of boiling water. Never mind, one of our crew was on an assignation with the glamorous love of his life, leaving us with a teenage style farewell: “don’t wait up…”
Sunday 6th April 2014 – Throw us an elephant why don’t you!
The morning started with a light hearted task, drop the egg from the spreaders onto the deck without smashing it. Easier said than done, eggs drifted off into the river, some floated away downstream and others smashed but heck, it was all about taking part!
Back to the matter in hand, the day was dry but, the gusts, oh the gusts! We pootled out of the river, in which we’d stayed overnight, to continue with the tasks. With one crew member down due to an unidentified lurgy, we had by this stage become rather blasé on the basis (I am sure we were not alone in this thinking) that as we were bound not to have won, we might just as well enjoy the practice and advancement of our personal sailing skills.
Time to mention the elephant in the room: this was, in fact, a fender and bucket on the pushpit. Cunning little devil that he is, our adjudicator tied on said elephant at the beginning of the day and left it there for us to become used to and, foolishly, we did.
The envelopes flowed like confetti and the tasks set were made more difficult by the blustery weather, however, we progressed through them with ever wearying muscles. Having just finished battling with the sails, which were going up and down like a yoyo, we were congratulating ourselves as pure heroes, having got to that stage without harm to man nor boat. We could have merrily strangled our adjudicator as he caught someone’s eye and with a maniacal look of glee, defiantly chucked the elephant over the side.
MAN OVERBOARD!
OMG we thought as one… There was only a moment’s hesitation before we broke into the standard routine.
Eventually we wrestled the bedraggled elephant on board then headed wearily off to Cowes. On route we toyed with an enthusiastic harbour master waiting to collect our fees for mooring on one of his buoys. However, we managed to wear him down after several unsuccessful attempts at picking up the buoy under sail and he eventually gave us up as a bad job!
It seemed our adjudicator did too and he allowed us to join the rest of the JMC competitors at our final destination.
Prizes and surprises!
Well done to the best boat, Fleur de Lis and to all who had taken part. To our Skipper’s surprise he won the Best Skipper prize and (for once in his life) was speechless!
We think our adjudicator also deserved a prize because we really put him through his paces too.
What a weekend, what a fab time we had! Hey, keep a weather eye on the horizon for, come October, we’ll be back!
Di Bromwich
