Day 4 - We race to lose.

We wanted to race today for the pleasure of being in the middle of our classic fleet companions. We thought the race started at 10 am. But we also wanted to drift up the Auray river on the tide, to follow in the footsteps of George Millar who describes it in Oyster River, his classic account of cruising these waters in the 60s. Towards the town of Auray we were surrrounded by beauty. No houses or boats to be seen, just a bucolic river scene in the pink fluffy dawn, a scene unchanged for millenia. All very poetic. We consider going aground vertically under the 14m bridge before the town, but decide against it. We drift back down to the start, to see our fleet disappearing in the distance. The start was at 8.30, and we were 40 minutes late. Across the start line to the raised eyebrows of the committee boat, up spinnaker, we've got to at least catch the back markers. Luckily we have Marcita's wind, a steady 15 kn, and we storm along out into the bay of Quiberon, beating a dozen or so of the slower boats. It' a sensational scene. Our fleet, the big boats, dozens of dinghies scooting about, gigs rowed by Amazons, and sun and wind in perfect combination. We take pathetic pleasure in out-tacking a smaller red-hulled boat, which clearly started life as a soap dish and is crewed by blithering incompetents. We finish not last, which is all we can hope for, and anchor for lunch and a snooze. This is idyllic, until we try to motor up to the anchor, and foul the spinnaker sheet round the prop. I am on the helm so this is my fault, a classic, culpable mistake, and I am mortified. Ian does the honourable thing, strips off, dives into the cold water with a knife between his teeth and can't hold his breath for more than a few seconds because he is so cold, but soon frees us.

The moral of these goings-aground and rope-round-the-prop episodes for sailors like us who should know better is: don't be beguiled by the beautiful day, the dinghies sailing yards from the beach, the peaceful and engrossing scene. This is a rocky and shallow sea, and you must always do your tide and pilotage calculations, however hazy your brain after last night's entertainment. It would help if the depth guage worked consistently, which it doesn't.

The pic is of the fleet at anchor for lunch.