Screwball 2005, as seen from the mark boat.

Saturday 17^th Sept.

Funny weather for Screwball. Then, it’s always funny, isn’t it, if you have the right sense of humour. The picture of ripples built by a gentle breeze, glittering like gems in the slanting rays of a September sun under an azure sky, is just my fantasy, a snap shot of one day long ago. If I look a little closer, I see floating wreckage, all boats but one on their sides after a squall line has passed, Greg Hood drifting off to Valois Bay with a broken mast sticking through a torn main, a monster wave kicking me 20 feet out of the boat, attached only by a spaghetti thin bungee cord (Eric says it was my fault).

Still, funny weather. The sprawling tresses of hurricane Ophelia, spread like a corona around her drowned head as she drifts up the East coast, reach us even here, bringing a North wind under low grey clouds, coming off a shore half hidden by aerial water that is more mist than rain. An off shore wind, so no proper waves, just a nasty chop: short, square and confused. Running upwind in the mark boat is like being driven at high speed across a ploughed field in a Landrover (a pleasure I enjoyed just once).

But at least there is wind – fifteen knots, give or take: less for the first race, more by the third, a bit less again for the fourth. Twelve boats out – thirteen when Dr. Thompson arrives for the third – down to ten by the fourth, with Paula retired exhausted and cold, Jen with a bent wrist and Grant with his center-board gasket gone. It’s not obvious from the motor boat, but this wind is gusty, irritated by its recent experience of buildings and trees – not good tempered at all. I’m not there to see it, but even Rob Levy (sailing on two hours sleep) manages to get knocked down – right at the first start, falling onto another boat and tearing his Mylar main. But he’s back out for the second race, Dacron in place.

It’s pretty clear who is going to come out on top. Joe and Tom are unassailable: they sail with the ease with which most of us walk. Even between races, they seem always to be going at top speed, as if they found that easier than idling. They execute their tacks with the practiced perfection of slightly bored tango dancers. But Eric and Peter are having a good day too, and usually right on their heels, when Rob and Steve are not. Mike McEvoy and Jason Phillips are up there too, much of the time – Jason amazing by what he can do without falling out of the boat, and how fast he can do it. Andrew and Phil have some good legs. Jen and Toby are erratic with moments of brilliance, until Jen’s wrist gives out. I feel like swimming away in shame when they catch their rudder on trailing ground tackle at the windward mark, and go from third to near last. Malcolm is solidly there, all the time: with John’s weight on the wire, he can take it all in stride, at a steady pace that provides the second half of the fleet a center around which to orbit. Pierre and Tom have an unhappy time, despite sailing well, with Bruiser’s tanks full of water after an early dump.

Dump: I’d better watch for that. I’m rescue as well as marks. Nobody needs my help - but I hope my presence is reassuring. George comes along at one point, to give advice as Paula and Dave roll over and over with the spinnaker up. They decide they are not having fun, and blast their way back to harbour on couple of screaming reaches. I find them much later in the sail shed, with five ounces left in a 40 of Johnny Walker red label. They are not unhappy: there are other ways to enjoy Screwball. Watching Grant and Averil scraping old rubber cement off 12940’s bottom gives them some entertainment.

Sunday 16^h Sept.

Less wind today, still from the North, but forecast to swing to the South West. That’s not good news: it usually clocks round through East and dies in the South, when that’s the forecast, and takes an hour or so to come back from South West. But it’s steady for the moment and George makes the most of it, getting the first race off promptly into a seven knot breeze, which soon falls to four or five.

Rob has clearly profited from a night of sleep, and leads, while Joe and Tom fumble on the first beat and come round the windward in seventh. But they are second when it is all over. All thirteen boats are out, and sailing well, with the last boat never a full leg behind the first. There is a lot of mixing in the places from second to seventh, with four boats abreast at one point on the second reach. Andrew and Phil have a good race.

The second race goes a bit off kilter. The second reach is far tighter than it should be: the wind is beginning to go East. The downwind leg ends up being a tight reach. And yet, yesterday’s prevailing order of finish reasserts itself, except that Rob takes a second bullet.

The wind is now full East, and by the time we have moved the windward and gybe, it is almost gone. George gives it fifteen minutes, and fires three guns into dead calm air. Ajax, the mark boat and a kind spectator tow four or five boats each back to harbour. At one point, the wind begins to fill in from the West, but soon fades again. Another race could not have changed the results, anyway.

So there it is – Screwball 2005 ends with the usual giving of prizes serious and less serious, with Andrew presiding and Peter doing the fun stuff with able assistance from Andrew and a little help from me. It’s been a good year. We are already looking forward to the next.