Day Three: Swan Soup... and some photos

The lovely Schooner Seraph, our Committee Boat

First of all, hi to "Mrs Pip" in the UK, Pip's mum, who, Pip (our foredeck crew) tells me follows the blog religiously and says it's "lovely", and so thank you for your kind comments, "Mrs Pip". It's always nice to know there are folk around the world following these "random jottings"...
As for "Swan Soup", well, that's a jokey jokey reference to Duck Soup, as in, not the Marx Bros movie, but "a bit of a mess".  Yuck, yuck!..
Well, that's being a bit unfair to all concerned, ourselves and the Swans in our division as well.
It was their day today, with an 18knt breeze, on which we did two courses: a short windward/leeward (aka, for the FBR's, up to a mark, back down, up and down again, hence its other name of doing "sausages").  We thought we did quite well, crew work wise, and overall, though we did fault ourselves for not getting "in mode" early enough, and my steering I must say, was not that great either, especially when pressed a bit.  Still, not too bad, but we still couldn't catch the Swan 68, Titania of Cowes, and our "arch enemy" Tonga also pipped us, and Lawana an X512 and our mate Rick Strompf's old boat snuck in there as well.  The next race was a kind of figure of eight, with a windward-leeward in the middle, and again, we were on top of it, when we fell in a hole at the top mark and to our deep chagrin (grrr), Tonga actually added insult to injury by coming on our inside with wind, while we were still mooching with flat air and struggling to get round the mark.  Once round, though, we walked away to the finish, but not enough to keep Tonga out of another second.  So for us, the results today a fifth and a third.
[Update 8/12: The results in Race 3 were very close: just 6 seconds first to second, 40 seconds to third and 9 seconds to fourth, then 1minute 20 fourth to fifth.]
[Further update: I'm not giving anything away, or being a grinch, when I note that there are questions on Titania's rating. The reporter who interviewed my for Sail TV (see below) asked me at one stage: "People are commenting on Titania's rating what's your view?".  I just smiled and said "well, she's got a very competitive rating, and she's a bit of handful to catch!".  Fact is, in whatever airs and whatever course, she's uncatchable. In race 3, where she got her only 2nd place, by 6 seconds, that was only because she blew out her spinnaker and had to sail with her genoa only for a while.]
We've had better days, and not too many worse.  As I say, for yacht racing: heartache mixed with the joy.
The wind though was fine, we couldn't really complain. Though I will, of course.  The hole at the top mark was a lottery, coming and going and it came on us when we pitched up there....  The joy bit was fanging along to the gate under Code Zero sail, doing 9-10 knots, with high bow wave.  Lovely.

In the morning a lady from Sail.com had wanted to do an interview for the online TV show, but I had to decline, as it's been deemed on our boat unlucky to talk to the media in the middle of a regatta.   I wonder what if I'd done it anyway. Answer, of course, is that our results would all have been my fault!  In the end, I did the interview, and note a comment above re Titania in the Update above.

So, that being the case, a forgettable day in terms of results, I think I'll just post a few photos and head off across the road with Jing, to catch up with the rest of the crew who are having drinks at the poolside bar.
It's a tough life here in sunny, tropical, friendly Phuket...

Grant, Bicky and TC, showing us course info

Richard, Iris, Stevo, Jing, Digger, Pip, Grant, Bicky and TC

Richard, Iris and Stevo

Jing on the ladies' lounge

Navigator TC wears the "blooper bandana", presented to the mistake
of the day: his for making a touch of an optimistic layline call...

Grant, Pip, Digger, G and Bicky heading out to the course

Our Mainsheet Trimmer with 100% attendance on Xena: "M C Danger"

This is from day one, Baby Tonga drifting on the Tide
on mirror waters, zero breeze.  We'd been well in front of them
to this stage and had it in the bag, as it were.... not quite...

ay 3, Race 3

Day 3, Race 4