Endless summer of discontent
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.
As I’ve said before, the Fiat team of Cocko, Linksy and Nath raced incredibly well. They were consistent, confident and dominating. Their results were impressive, but don’t give a good indication for how close the racing actually was.
Seve and the guys on 7 ended up beating Fiat in 4 of the 7 races. They took a while to warm up to the regatta unfortunately, but didn’t make the major mistakes that marred their early-season results. The guys are quick, and are improving at such a rate that even the Fiat dominance might be threatened in 12 months time.
John and Craig (with Riss and Gilly) on Rag made a late surge to take 3rd place. Riss’s knee explosion before race 6, and the subsequent addition of an extra 15kgs in a rockstar bowman might have had something to do with the Rag’s 1-2 score in the final races. Not trying to take anything away from John though. Despite admittedly sailing worse than in recent years, the result was better.
Hugh’s spectacular beaching on Asko rock in Sunday’s final race made for a great story, and a great video, but not such a good result. In the running to take yet another 2nd (if they could get a few boats between them and 7 in that race), the grounding pushed Asko back to 4th - and one of their worst results in the last 5 years.
Howie on Pegasus finished in 5th yet again, with a few gear breakages stuffing what would otherwise have been a very consistent performance. The light easterlies of early February didn’t eventuate to cause any headaches for these heavyweights. If their trap lines didn’t blow up and their boom didn’t break… who knows. Next stop Garda.
Herman, Jack and Casey on AppliancesOnline.com.au were also a team whose results improved as the regatta progressed. Their results were up and down, but a few great finishes and their unpredictable average points pushed them right up there. Casey was definitely helpful getting around Shark Is on the tight run downwind. Jack’s tactics surely helped out. Herman got them off the startline and straight into the lead every now and then. A good result really.
Club Marine. I’ve already said enough.
But we weren’t alone in being disappointed.
Australian Champions Macquarie Real Estate were back in 9th. Unable to take advantage of their light weight and bottom-range speed for both rigs, the guys were left off the podium in all but the first race… not surprisingly a bottom-end 2nd rig race.
NSW Champions and Australian runners-up Ssangyong Yandoo were also well out of the top 10. I can’t recall them having a good race, and a broken mast-step and broken centreboard didn’t help the scoreline.
My tips ended up being way-off, with only 2 of the top 5.
So where to from here?
Euan has left the country again to coach stars in the US. That leaves me steering the boat for the last 5 or so races left in the season. That’s going to be interesting… but I somehow doubt I’m going to replicate last seasons skippering effort of Club Marine.
Other regattas on the radar are the Anzac regatta in Auckland, then the Europeans in Garda. I don’t know if I can (or have a team to) do either, but they would be nice.
Roll on 2008.
