scott.projectsomewhere

I have been less than enthusiastic about the prospect of spending $10k going to Weymouth in July and had almost reached the point of ruling myself out… til the NSW States over the weekend fired me up… if only a little.

Now it’s on. I’m going to get there and give the regatta a run.

Thankfully pulling off a win at the recent States on Jervis Bay has given me that motivation to get the campaign back on the rails.

Day 1 was windy. And wavy. The waves were worse than Garda, but luckily we didn’t have the really fresh breeze which would’ve made it practically unsailable. I headed out with a new stiff wand setup, and headed back to the shore in no time to switch back to normal. I managed to get back out there in time to start the invitation race.

In pretty short order, myself and John and Mat on their Bladeriders launched out of the blocks and led the fleet upwind. I capsized on the first of many ordinary tacks. John and I rounded the first mark together, with my pitchpole soon after putting John into the lead. It didn’t last for long though, with the gnarly waves claiming pretty much everyone at some point. I sailed reasonably conservatively, in fear of breaking anything, but thankfullly I was quick and upright enough to win.

Unfortunately as an invitation race it counted for nothing.

Race 1 was more of the same. Les was out after ripping the gantry off his borrowed boat. Dave Lister broke his gantry bolts. Every scow on the water lost their rigs (or at least they all appeared to have). Luka didn’t risk his borrowed foils in the windy stuff and stayed on shore. Belcher was on the beach running back to the club to retrieve a hammer and screwdriver to re-attach his rudder foil. By the time we started, the fleet was slightly depleted.

I raced around without a capsize to get a reasonable lead, despite not pushing anywhere near as hard as Ben, who sent his boat straight down the waves with just a bit more conviction than I could manage. Then by the time the last lap rolled around, I was quite chuffed with having avoided a swin, only to piss it in twice within a couple of hundred metres of the line. Ben was second, and Donosan was 3rd to make a ProwlerZero trifecta. Belcher dropped from 3rd to 6th in the last downwind, and John pulled up stumps after lowriding with a broken pushrod for two laps.

So plenty of repairs to do in preparation for Heat 2, Day 2.

Day 2 brought more of the same, albeit with a fading breeze. I won a close race against Dave Lister, who was very fast as expected. The first lap seemed to be a matter of leap-frogging the leader as they went over the mine downwind.

Race 3 was a disaster for me. Belcher, John, Dave and myself were within a couple of lengths as we launched our way towards the middle mark, but I managed to round down into a capsize next to the mark, and spend a huge amount of time getting it upright. The leaders fought their way around the track, and I spent another couple of minutes capsizing another 3 or 4 times in pretty spectacular fashion. If you’re going to stuff up, I guess it’s good to get it all over and done with in 1 race.

By the afternoon, the breeze had died completely - taking the waves with it. In drifting conditions, Belcher, Phil, Les and the lowriders were very fast. At times it was a contest of disconnecting foil controls to minimize drag and then panicking to reconnect them when a puff came down the course. Stevo won both races, with Belcher forgetting the course while in the lead and on the way to the finish in the final race.

Sunday saw more of the same. After a long postponement we hit the water in non-foiling conditions, then drifted through the first 1-lap-wonder of a race. I think I finished 4th, losing valuable points on Belcher in the process.

The breeze came in a touch for race 7, and while the course was reset I managed to foil around with the dolphins near the shore. Unbelievable to have a dolphin the size of the boat crusing along directly underneath the foils… unbeliveable and slightly unnerving.

Anyway, I led the race til the tight reach, where Belcher and Matt Day ran over the top of me as I tried to reconnect foil connections. Belcher did the same at the wing mark and we all launched into a gust. Somehow I managed to hang onto it for longer, and kept foiling around the bottom mark and out to the upwind layline…. where it all went bad. I low-rode the next half of the work as Belcher and Day flew up behind, over the top, and down the reach in front of me. Luckily lightning struct twice and Belcher forgot the course on the final leg, I foiled around the wing mark and all the way to the finish for a valuable race win, and an unbeatable lead in the regatta.

More of the same for race 8, at times dragging foils around, and then more stuffing around to reconnect them. I managed to foil on the final broad reach to pass 5 or 6 boats and take 3rd. Thanks to that wonderful F-Box thingo.

So all in all a good event. Tough racing in light winds - I have plenty of work to do to keep up with sailors of Belcher’s ability.

The next Moth event on the calendar is the Anzac Day race at St George, then the BYRA Marathon around Lion Island (provided the wind blows).

Then the Worlds…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 25th, 2008 at 10:53 am and is filed under Moth, Sailing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.