Playing At Pirates

Today (Weds 25th) James, Freya, Marcus, Jess and two new friends (Swedish) Marcus and Vince, had our first ‘practice’ sail in Veracity a traditional Cornish Dipping Lugger that we intend to race here in Antigua during Classics Week. What an experience! I can only admire Marcus for Single Handing this beast for several years out of the river Dart, albeit without an engine!

As our first outing, the aim was to basically learn how to sail her and what a steep learning curve it was. The two masts are made from telegraph poles, there are no winches as its all block & tackle and the sails are either lashed to spars (logs) or free flying and being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be painful! Despite Veracity being very 'low tech' she is extremely powerful and we were surging along in the 15kn winds close hauled at over 6.5kn!

Our first attempts at Tacking and Gybing (Dipping the Lug) can best be described as organized chaos, but at least we got the idea of what is involved. Interestingly, our fastest tack was when aborting an approach into a shallow rocky reef pass into Indian Creek for lunch which left us on a lee shore – funny that!

The highlight of the day was sailing back into the anchorage where we had left a small raft of dinghies. Despite the headwinds and flukey windshifts we slowly sailed our way through the many boats that fill the small bay that is English Harbour. All the other boat owners came up on deck with a nervous look in their eyes, not helped by Marcus’ comments such as ‘Is your Insurance up to date?’ Little did they know that the ignition was ‘on’ for the electric motor that Veracity now carries… sneaky!

All in all a great day with lots learnt. Now we simply have to practice, practice and then practice again before Classics. Even if we don’t win any races there’s always the fancy dress competition!