And so it begins
thedailysail put together a nice little form guide on this week’s JJ, with a bit of help.
And so the regatta started yesterday (actually the invitation was on Friday).
The form guide has been to expectations, with Seve, Rob and Sam on 7 taking both races in fairly comfortable fashion. Even in the light and shite south-easterly, the guys walked away from the start to lead by often very large margins.
For the rest of us, it has been an up and down couple of races.
In the invitation race, The Rag (me), Asko, Fiat and Club Marine were fighting it out at the back of the fleet up the first work, with Rag taking stone motherless last around the mark. Even Herman beat us around with a capsize.
From there we stormed home though. Picking up boats on every leg to finish in 5th spot. So all in all, a reasonable result considering how it started.
Yesterday’s first heat was unfortunately not so good. We started better, but generally got shafted up the first work and had to fight through the bunch. We then proceeded to get parked in a pile up at the leeward mark, where out mate Simon on AppliancesOnline decided to stop and half capsize with 6 boats behind him trying to get around.
From there we took some good lines upwind, and were just on Fiat’s tail when John’s trap loop gave way and he ejected out the back of the boat, tiller in hand. Pete and I stopped the boat and reversed up to him as he did the quick 50m swim. At least we couldn’t hear the yelling underwater. After the hasty tiller repair, a whole bunch of boats sailed through, and what could’ve been a reasonable result was now thoroughly disappointing. Unfortunately the rest of the course was not much better, and we crossed the line in 13th. Not a great way to start.
For the guys on 7 though, it was pretty much ideal. They took the win by almost 2 minutes, and the main competition on Fiat, Asko, Club Marine and Macquarie were back a couple of points. They’ve already built up a buffer.
However the win wasn’t without it’s dramas. The disappointment in the fleet was tangible when the 2nd start was recalled, and we all looked around to see the 7 guys on the fin at the boat-end, with Smeg taking chunks out of their hull and fins with their wings. If only. There’s still plenty of races to go, and plenty of opportunities for surprises.
The Smeg guys were toughing it out at the front for the real race though, taking 2nd ahead of the visiting Kiwis on C-Tech. At least I mentioned them in my form guide, and they could be a bit of a surprise package if the breeze continues to be fairly ordinary. They’ve gone for a new high-modulus mast tip after breaking their old one early in the year, and they’ve stiffed up their lower-mast, but they didn’t bother to re-do the luff-round on the main, so they’ve got a nice-looking powerful rig for the light winds… and it seems to be suiting Trev’s high-mode.
For us, hopefully today’s race is a bit better, and we can beat John’s 8th, OCS for the first two races last year.
Another race today, with the same light and shifty east-south-easterly. Hopefully we can get in phase and sort out our upwinds. If we get off the line well and tack when it flaps, we might be in with the a chance.
