scott.projectsomewhere

So the 2007 JJ Giltinan is over, and with it goes the motivation for the rest of the 18 footer season at the League.

Our end result of 7th was pretty much a disaster. A disappointing disaster at that.

We went in to it after a week of tuning fairly comfortable with our preparation. We weren’t as fast as our training partners across the full wind range, but had strengths in the bottom-end range of both rigs.

Unfortunately we didn’t really get bottom-end wind conditions. Unlike the last few years, there were no tricky easterly breezes to take advantage of. Instead we had 7 moderate Nor-East races in a row followed by a final marginal 2nd rig Southerly.

It’s always bad to come out of a regatta after finishing below potential. It’s always good to have some strokes of brilliance and take a close regatta at the death.

But then someone has to lose don’t they.

Anyway. Enough moaning about our performance.

(more…)

According to the latest email, the delivery date for the Bladerider is the 14th of April.

Just after the state championship unfortunately - so not much hope of defending the title.

Great footage of Asko hitting the rocks in the last race of the JJ.

Not a great way to end the series.

And nice photo in the Daily Telegraph… lifted from the SailingAnarchy forums.

Cocko, Linksy and Nath on Fiat have defended their JJ Giltinan title, taking out the series with a day to spare. Their 5th place in Saturday’s race 6 meant they don’t need to sail the final on Sunday.

Congratulations to the guys on an impressive series - and an impressive season all up.

Someone is going to have to take a step up to knock these guys off next time… or we’re going to be in for more of the same for a while…

We played russian roulette with the rig choice in today’s race 5… and lost.

While the NE seabreeze was building, we made a late switch to the little rig, while every other boat in the fleet went big.

We were either going to be famous… or not.

The breeze looked good on the practice sail out to the course, we were three stringing and looking good on the Rag in what we thought would be a building breeze.

Then we looked around and saw the cloud bank over the city. Fark.

By the time the race started the cloud had rolled in, and the breeze was fading.

We started well, and hung on for a top 8 rounding, but then had to battle around watching the fleet sail through us. In the end we finished 23rd.
So there goes our regatta.

Not bad luck, but a bad decision. We rolled the dice, hoping the conditions would go our way and we’d lock away a win over the ever-consistent Cocko.

But it wasn’t to be.

Now we’re fighting for a top 5.

You’ve gotta love the people who throw their trash into Sydney Harbour… We must’ve picked up a plastic bag after the first lap of today’s race, then towed it around the course for the next two laps… losing 10 boats in the process.

Not a good thing to do when you’ve had a good showing in the races so far.

With a 3,1,7,14 scoreline, we’ve dropped to 4th. A good few points back off the leaders, and carrying a hefty drop.

Considering the series winner needs to have about 18 points for their best 6 races, we’ve got some work to do now.

So…

Tuesday’s race was a light gradient ENE breeze, with everyone going big rig.

We had an awful start, 2nd row and apparently 30 seconds late. From there we sailed fast to get back into the top 10 at the top mark. The right-hand pressure on the tight reach around Shark Is meant a few boats were heading for the bricks. At one stage we were a boatlength off the rocks, hanging onto our trapeze loops with all the sails flogging just hoping to get around the mark.

Herman on Appliancesonline.com.au raced away to the lead, overtaking Seve on the tight reaches - til Seve worked out he needed to ease the main on the tight reach. Fiat and these two fought it out at the front, with Fiat gaining the right hand advantage and the lead at the end of the last work.

For us, not so good. We battled around with Howie and Macquarie, losing touch on Asko and Rag, and eventually losing out to Howie on the tight run home. Fat bastards.

So today was going to be better. We were going to get off the line well and put in a better show… and we did - get off the line at least. We started well and were smoking up the work. We got out of phase a little at the top and lost 3 or 4 places, but still rounded in the top 6. At the bottom we were 5th.

But then we caught something.

Well we didn’t realise we had anything, it was just that everyone started going faster than us. Even boats sailing in our gas were going the same speed. Boats behind were getting closer and starting to cross us, the boats ahead were just moving away. Bugger.

In the end 10 boats sailed through us on the next few legs… damn frustrating.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day.