Gone the Rag
The crew swap onto the Rag went well yesterday, but having Pete and
I on the boat still didn’t improve the Rag’s season of 2nd and 3rd
places.
We were screwed on the start by an OCS Rollo, but tacked right
early and took the right-hand side of Shark in the light SE breeze.
We led around the top mark but Casio stopped us gybing when we
wanted to downwind, and we rounded 2nd at Cremorne Pt.
The places didn’t change at the top mark off Clarke, but in the
shoddy downwind to Clifton Gardens we overtook and rounded just
ahead, with 11 seconds separating 1st and 4th.
Woody had the best upwind to Shark, rounding ahead while we dropped
to 4th with Asko catching fast.
Positions didn’t change on the next upwind or downwind (lucky a
ferry stopped Asko), but on the next upwind we were further left
than Woody and came through to the finish in 3rd.
Euan took his usual high-risk strategy, banging left and taking the
lead and then the race.
So all in all it was a good day for us.
But not so good for Craig and Riss on Active, breaking the mast at
the 2nd spreader before the start. I don’t really want to know how
many DNFs we’ve had this season!
Anyway, that’s the last race for me for the 2005/06 18′ season,
with next weekend’s final race being interrupted by a NSWIS 49er
training session.
And I should probably put a little bit of time into the Moth if I
intend to do well at the upcoming State Championship… it’s going
to take a bit of effort to prise the trophy out of the Thorpe hands
that have been holding it for a decade.
