Martin Tanco’s Challenge, never far away 6 BOATING& WATERSPORTS Against all the forecasts (even the paid-for ones), the race started at noon with six to eight knots of breeze out of the East, this carried the fleet of thirteen yachts purposefully out past Grande Island, towards Morong. Selma Star was under spinnaker, a little to the front of the middle of the fleet, about were she should be based upon the IRC rating system (see sidebar to this article) and the excellent helming of Skipper Smurf Jun. The race fleet consisted of three classes: IRC Racing, IRC Cruiser Racer (our class) and PY Cruising. The two IRC classes would compete separately but their results would be combined to determine the overall Boracay Race trophy winner. Out past Grande Island the predicted “holes” started to appear but again, against forecast, there was still a gentle breeze occasionally disturbed by some stronger puffs of wind. We did stop for a moment but mostly we were able to keep positive momentum, albeit not always in the most desirable direction. Then, as happened last year, after 14:00 hrs a new breeze started to build . . . not from the predicted easterly direction but, from the North! Gentle but sustained, this northerly breeze was forecast only on windguru. com and for after 17:00 – it had thankfully arrived early. We skillfully rode the light northerly, in the direction of Fortune Island, all the way past sundown. At night, with only a thin sliver of a quarter moon to assist my view from the helm, it was difficult to see all the other yachts - every Smurf had a little headlight strapped to his forehead, perpetually impairing night vision. Thankfully, most also had an Internet enabled mobile phone at hand, so we could rely on the tracking website to keep tabs on our rivals. Purposefully helming Selma Star into the night, towards Cape Santiago, all but one of our direct competitors (Martin Tanco’s Challenge) were left in our wake. By the time we arrived off Calatagan Reef in the middle of the night, the predicted easterly breeze was beginning to have influence. When Challenge tacked in towards the Reef, North of Cape Santiago, I passed her deliberately and encouraged our sails to bite into the freshening breeze inside the Verde Island Passage. It was an ebb tide, which meant that the bulk of the water within the Passage was moving East to West at around two knots; our course was West to East. However, by staying away from Cape Santiago we had a small back-eddy to play with. Internet observers later confirmed that that is where we definitely took control of Challenge and got ahead of her convincingly, if only briefly . . . if we had accomplished this under a full moon or in daylight, or if the beaming Smurfs could be encouraged to put out their headlights, we would have extended our advantage because we could have crossed the choppy waves more efficiently. The back-eddy did not last forever but we had gained valuable ground such that, by the time we were abreast of Maricaban Island, in the teeth of the 20-knot easterly breeze that funnels between Maricaban and Mindoro Islands, Challenge was only slightly ahead again. At daybreak we were shorttacking along the Mindoro coast, from Abra de Ilog towards Puerto Galera. We took advantage of the little back-eddies and lighter wave-action close to Mindoro shore to keep up with Challenge, who had taken the alternate course along the North shore of the Passage. Martyn Willes
BOATING& WATERSPORTS 7
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