Then Tin Dragon went racing

20th March 2011

The International Tin Canoe Regatta is now officially (or should I say "unofficially"?) a non-event. Work that one out... A bunch of tin canoe enthusiasts (this year with 11 canoes) happen to show up at Iluka each March for a fun weekend. Saturday is taken up with putting the final touches on all the canoes and we need to test them out on the Sunday with a few races. Nothing too serious, I never heard anyone yell "Water!" although Azzo did seem pretty keen to win. Saturday night is, of course, a party.

That reminds me - I should mention that there was more than enough water coming from the heavens. It was a wet weekend.

 Savaad and I were still tweaking right up to the start.




















Finally we were underway on the first race. It was too good to be true. I took the helm and Savaad was forward hand. It felt so good.



Before we even reached the second mark calamity struck. The bamboo forward mast snapped. What to do? We had been having so much fun!














We decided to continue and Savaad managed to get some wind into the jib by holding it out. I found I could steer reasonably well.











Well reasonably well but not well enough. I rammed John's canoe while rounding the second mark. Luckily protests are not part of this non-event. Even more fortunately we were going so slowly that I didn't cause any damage. We just disentangled our canoes and kept going.

We got a prize for being the "most optimistic", apparently it is pretty optimistic to continue to race after being dismasted.



After the first race Savaad set to work to sorting out a new bamboo forward mast but it wasn't ready in time for the second race so I jumped aboard and said I would sail single handed with main only. See photo below. That went well except for the fact that the canoe was rapidly filling with water. There are about a dozen polystyrene vegetable boxes as buoyancy and I thought we were going to find out if they worked. I finished but with far less free board than when I started. We had sprung a major leak at the base of the forward mast. The leak put an end to the idea of sailing as a schooner. We stuck to one mast for the rest of the day and Savaad raced the third race solo  finishing successfully if rather damp. Then Caz and Cathy each took a turn as a very damp forward hand for Savaad. Sadly Beronice had to keep her little toe dry following surgery so couldn't join in.

Team Tin Dragon had such a good time that we'll be back at the Ides of March next year.