Andy Rice

Sailing is a capricious sport and the chance to go from hero to zero within the space of minutes is extremely high, as Andy found to his cost

One of the questions we should all be asking ourselves is which of the things we’ve had to change windward mark but no way was I going for the hoist. The over-fifties should be considered legally exempt from having to get the gennaker up, so I didn’t. Behind me 14 expert but relative during the pandemic are things newcomer to the Musto Skiff fleet Neale we’ll want to keep once we get back Jones hoisted but also got flattened. to a ‘new normal’? A year ago, our Tempted by the possibility of being resident pro-sailor in the Musto Skiff able to seize the lead, I committed the fleet, Pete Greenhalgh, instigated cardinal sin of ‘wearing round’! In other the Corona Cup events. Like an words, to tack the boat through a 270 open meeting, except the Notice of degree turn rather than commit to the

Race and Sailing Instructions are almost certain death of a one-sail windy little more than a hundred words gybe. It’s still not an easy manoeuvre, but on a shared WhatsApp group, £20 it worked and I hung on for grim death paid online to Pete, with two ribs until the leeward gate which fortunately manned by willing volunteers, one ‘PETE ROUNDED THE TOP had been turned into a finish line after crew operating as committee boat and the other as rescue boat. MARK IN FIRST PLACE, just one lap. Rather than leaping down the stairs three at a time I had done the

We had our first Corona Cup HOISTED THE KITE, Musto Skiff equivalent of sitting on the of 2021 on the Solent in mid May, with the permanent racing buoy, NOSEDIVED AND CAPSIZED’ Stannah Stairlift and taking the slower way down the treacherous race course.

Fastnet Insurance, as our windward A victory for the tortoise over the hare. mark on a simple windward-leeward course with the leeward The arrival of the big breeze signalled an early finish to the gate the same as the start and finish line. Super simple set- Corona Cup, but that wasn’t the end of the day’s adventure. up. Back-to-back races run on a 3-2-1-start sequence. There was the small matter of delivering body and boat safely

This would be my first outing in my new secondhand boat, back to Stokes Bay five miles downwind. Despite having sailed recently purchased from the multiple Musto Skiff World the Musto Skiff for a decade I still don’t know the answer to

Champion and fellow Stokes Bay SC member Bruce Keen. Bruce getting the boat downwind in big waves without the occasional has always been quick around the course with his particular nosedive. Hooked on and sitting on the windward footloop, ie strength being able to hold a high mode upwind without stalling as far aft as possible, when the bow goes under it is sometimes the boat. Trying to start to windward of him is a big challenge possible to round out of the nosedive while dumping the so part of the reason for buying Bruce’s boat is to get a proven mainsheet and just about surviving. But not every time. Three package that is known to go fast. The advantage of doing this is capsizes later and I had got within 200 metres of making that it removes that question we all have when we find ourselves landfall at Stokes Bay when the final nosedive caught me out going slow: “Is it me or the boat?” The disadvantage of doing is again. This time when the boat capsized the mast stuck in the that it removes that question we all have when we find ourselves mud, with the hull sitting precariously proud of the waves. going slow: “Is it me or the boat???” There is nowhere to hide! As I have learned to my cost, experience told me NOT

Heading out in almost zero breeze on a forecast that was to try to right the boat until the hull had rotated to leeward predicted to be too windy, the five-mile sail from Stokes Bay of the mast tip. Climbing on to the upturned hull would along the coast towards the Fastnet Insurance buoy in the almost certainly result in the mast breaking. But the boat was mid-Solent was an uncertain affair. Eventually we all arrived refusing to rotate. Swimming the boat round was impossible at the start line, 10 boats ready for action, and a light airs race in the big waves and it was many minutes later before a lull in ensued, won by former 14 World Champion Sam Pascoe who the breeze enabled me to swim the transom downwind and was visiting from Weymouth for the day. Next race and the convince the stubborn boat to pirouette around the mast. breeze had picked up to full trapezing, this heat being won by When I finally managed to get the boat on its side, it was reigning Musto Skiff National Champion Pete Greenhalgh. By to great relief that I discovered the Selden carbon mast had race three the breeze had really kicked in as predicted, blowing ANDY RICE survived intact. For a while I thought my maiden voyage over 20 knots against an adverse current - big Solent chop! As a sailing journalist aboard the world championship winning boat was going

Pete rounded the top mark in first place, hoisted the kite, and TV commentator Andy has unparalleled to be the ultimate hero-to-zero story of a race victory nosedived and capsized. Next round was Pete’s regular training knowledge of the followed by a broken mast. Suffice it to say that the good ship partner Andy Tarboton, who hoisted, executed the gybe, but dinghy sailing scene, from grassroots to GBR534, winner of the 2015 and 2019 world titles, is most then succumbed to the Solent chop. I was next round the Olympic level likely headed for a harder life in the years to come!