Well the dust has settled, protests have been heard, so results can be confirmed 1st Eye Spy 2nd Firsty 3rd Escape About protesting: It is absolutely a "MUST" that you inform the protested boat as soon as possible, ie IMMEDIATELY if practical..This also gives the protested boat an opportunity to take a 720 penalty if they concede that they may have infringed a rule You "MUST" display a red protest flag at the earliest opportunity, and it will help your case if you point to the flag when crossing the finish line See you all on the 24th, a clean is up for grabs !! Race report from Nona The day promised to be unpredictable so we opted for the number 2 and a reef. My crew is Dave and the dynamic duo, Sophie and Karolin who wanted a last sail before flying back to Germany the next day. The start is messy and we are early. Too many boats around to get back over the line so we bite the bullet, cross early and depower the boat and wait for everyone to pass before going back to re-start. Not the best but at least we made the start in one attempt unlike another who made two unSATISFYing attempts at a correct start. We are well behind and just concentrate in doing the numerous tacks cleanly. We are up at Birkenhead and spot a boat on the other side of the bridge with a kite sort of up but not really. We pass on our way to Bayswater and their kite is flying merrily from the top of the mast. I don’t need any further prompting to announce “NO SPINNAKER DAVE” We go around Bayswater and shake out the reef and quickly change to the number 1 headsail. As we are just about to go under the bridge, the boat with the spinnaker issue, has a man up the mast and the kite is coming down. Through the bridge and it is a meander home with Karolin on the helm to Kauri Point and Sophie to the finish. The girls had a good time and developed some muscles from the tacking with should hold them in good stead for carrying those numerous text books. Last on the water and last on handicap. Can do better. Sounds like my school reports. Thanks to the start tower the Social committee for the hot food. Nona. Race Report from Escape! Sunday morning at the Marina and a star crew on board, Pete, Will and Tim as usual and the pluses of George for the first time this series and Gina free to come at last. We were ready to go! A quick trip round had us at the club early so we had plenty of time to check out the start area and it was not a pretty sight. Wind on the nose a slight outgoing tide and a short line for starters. Best line would be on port at the buoy but with the mud making for a very short line on starboard that end was always going to be crowded. The result is now history. Port starboard infringements, plenty of shouting, protests and an unfortunate and expensive collision. Luckily we were clear of most of it. The skipper didn't tell the crew what he planned to do and a back winded genoa had us 5 lengths away from the "action" and happy to be there. We heard it all though. Fourth off the line behind Firsty, Eyespy and Bluebeat with lots of tacking to Kauri Point. The 88s were reefed while we had opted for full main. We made gains in the lulls but were overpowered in the gusts so it took a little while to catch and pass Bluebeat. We then traded tacks with Eyespy all the way to Bayswater. It was old style Americas cup stuff ( without the Pete Montgomery commentary) and we could have liked virtual spectator to tell us if we were on a winning or losing tack but had to wait for the next cross to see each time. It was lots of fun and only stopped when we rounded Bayswater. We had led through the bridge and sat on them but Trev tacked clear and found a nice line of breeze to be a boat length in front at the mark. Cue slow motion kite hoists on both boats. It sure feels that way when you're watching from the helm and the boats are close but a video replay would show that it actually happened pretty quickly but we were a bit quicker so Escape passed Eyespy while it was going on and led through the bridge by a few boat lengths. From there it was a long haul to Kauri Point trying to catch the puffs and stay out of the tide. Firsty was well in front but we still had some hopes of catching her and the rest were slowly dropping back. All we had to do was safely gybe to turn for home. Fair to say it took a long time to complete that gybe and we've certainly done better. Most of the time the sail was full, plenty of advice was exchanged between the front of the boat and the back and if if shared adversity binds you together then we're practically family now. In the end the task was completed and we zig zagged our way along the edge of the mud, mindful of our brief stop their in the previous race, to a rather sedate finish. Firsty too far in front and Eyespy to close behind for any real hope of a win on handicap but plenty of satisfaction in recovering from a pretty average start and a good day on the water nonetheless. Cheers Trevor Race report from Eye Spy: Well……….the weather forecast had people on edge about the race being cancelled but the direction from the Sailing captain after last race had many of us down at the club to hear what he had to say. The 88 skippers had just finished discussing the course options when Nigel showed up. “Course 5” Chelsea starboard, Bayswater starboard, then home. Great course in a breeze ranging from 10-25knts. We hadn’t shaken our reef from last race so we elected to start with it along with the number 2 headsail. I have JK, Greg and Gill with me today. We discuss starting tactics and there were a few comments about starting on port but common sense prevailed and a starboard start was decided. This meant we had to go to the shallows over by the ramp and with inches to spare beneath we tacked onto starboard. Timing wasn’t bad and we closed in on the line…………x%!!*%! boats in the way…. on port! Needless to say things resulted in a couple of protests and undefined damage. As race results are provisional and protests are pending I won’t delve into details. However……post the start entertainment we found ourselves in the lead after “threading the needle” through the chaos. It soon became obvious that we would be tacking all the way to Bayswater. A couple of tacks up the harbour and Firsty got by us then eventually Escape did too. A decision to hold the reef turned out to be a good one as winds would have been too much with full main (some would say meoooooow). We crossed tacks with Escape a number of times and even rounded the top mark before him. Escape was a little quicker with their spinnaker hoist and we settled into what would be the finishing order. The task at hand now was to maintain the smallest of gaps between us. One gybe at Kauri point and we headed for home. It got a little light for comfort towards the finish line and we noted BlueBeat closing the gap. Not to worry as they fell into the same hole. Handi-cap results saw Eye Spy 1st (provisional). Great result…….thanks to my crew and all other competitors. I look forward to doing it all again in a couple of weeks. |
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