A comedy of errors
So the weekend started well with the Moth Interclub event at
Toronto on Lake Macquarie. With 50+ boats to sail against, the Moth
turnout was disappointing - with only 5 starters and no
locals!
The foiler again was the show pony of the event. I did the routine
self-promotion by heading out early and blasting around the bay in
front of the club. It was a busy day on the lake, so there were
plenty of blatant ‘look-at-moie’ moments - and I took full
advantage of them.
The race was the usual long winded afair. With a recall at the
start I re-rounded the pin and flew through the fleet on port - not
for the faint-hearted. Halfway up the work I’d crossed the leading
505, by the top mark I was a few minutes ahead, by the bottom mark
the next boat was still back at the wing mark. Unfortunately the
wind died off in the second half of the race and I couldn’t
continue to extend the lead. I held in there for a 9+ minute win
over the 2nd boat - a 29er, with Stevo the 2nd Moth 20 minutes
back.
Yes, the foiler is obscenely quick.
So from there it was back to Sydney… for a quick Saturday-night
sojourn in the Cross for Herman’s opening night at
Dragonfly. Needless to say I was out of my depth in the
Eastern-suburbs rich & beautiful coked-to-the-eyeballs set. Fun
all the same.
Then on to the 18’s race on Sunday.
The pattern seems to be re-establishing itself. We started well and
were going fast uphill before Sweeney fell of trap and broke the
tiller after a tack. We lost plenty of time tacking back to pick
him up and taping up the broken tiller to keep racing. Then it was
a littany of abortion tacks and gybes followed by a dodgey last
gybe-drop which saw the tack-line snag and the kite tear underneath
the boat.
Despite all that we were taking minutes out of the fleet (or at
least our part of it) uphill with some smart calls in the tricky
East-South-Easterly.
We finished a respectable 9th, taking Yandoo near the last top
mark.
Who knows what we could do if we got our stuff together….
As Euan says - often - of himself… maybe we could ‘take it to
another level’.
