Mariquita Book - mk2.5

JOHN CAULCUTT
Owner & Helmsman
This was the first race of the new season
and my heart was pounding. My long-time
sailing friend David Howlett (trainer to Sir
Ben Ainslie and Iain Percy and with whom I
had done an Olympic campaign in the 80s)
was with us as tactician, and between us we
agreed that our first ever start on Mariquita
should be a conservative and safe one – on
starboard tack at the committee boat end of
the line. With one minute to go everything
looked good – we had nobody to leeward and
no one above us as we approached the line,
except for Mariska, one of the 15-Metre Class
on port tack coming in from the pin end of
the line. Mariska had no rights and we were
not overly concerned, despite our foredeck
calling “starboard”, until about half a boat
length beneath us, she tacked under our bow
and luffed us up towards the committee boat
leaving less than a foot between us.
After the race, the helmsman of Mariska
came up to us, shook David and myself by
the hand, and told us with a broad grin that
he had waited some 25 years to get his own
back on us for taking him the wrong side of
the weather mark in the Olympic Star Boat
Class European Championships in the 1980s
– what a memory and what an introduction to
classic boat sailing!
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