scott.projectsomewhere

The penultimate day of the Moth nationals was another day of everything. We postponed on shore while the wind blew itself out, so by the time we actually started the breeze was dropping and getting patchy.

I started badly and was rolled pretty quickly. After tacking out I low-rode for a bit then headed off to the right with Nathan and John.

Shame the breeze went left on the first work.

I sort of picked my way into contention at the end of the work (other than Bora who’d cleared out), then gybed down in a puff and did well up the next work to be in the top 3 and not far off them.

But then I lost a couple on the run, lost Arnaud upwind, then got hung out to dry on the final run to finish 9th. Not flash.

We floated around for a bit while the breeze went left then built.

By the time we started it was breeze on. We blasted away upwind, and I rounded in about 7th or so. Then boats started dropping on the downwind. Sam went down, then got it up and still rounded the bottom mark right behind me, if you could call blasting off at 180 degrees to the upwind mark a rounding.

The field was fairly close a the top, with Dave and Nathan fighting it out. I passed a couple of boats then engaged a bit of the limping crab mode to see Brownie, Arnaud and Rod run down the inside. I gybed and took their stern on the layline, with Rod and Brownie hitting the piss on the gybe and Arnaud doing a massive pitchpole right infront of me. I passed Simon when he was wallowing upside down at the gate and started taking Bora apart upwind – thank god for that weed. At the top I rounded in 5th close to John and Bora, then saw Bora go into submarine mode trying to avoid John on the layline into the finish.

So I landed a 4th due to staying upright. Nathan did a massive capsize but still finised way ahead of me in 2nd place, with Dave in the lead.

After 9 races, I’ve dropped to 4th, behind Nathan, Simon and Dave. Simon seems to have stolen defeat from the jaws of victory with an OCS and a DFL.

Close behind me with 1 race left to run are Brownie and Bora, and with a 10am start, anything can happen.

After the late finish, a bunch of boats waited around for a Bladerider dash-for-cash series. 9 boats started, with 1 boat eliminated in the first race, and two in each race afterwards, down to a match race final for the $500.

The course was a starboard reach start off the marina, with 3 reaching legs and gybes before a short upwind to the finish.

In the first race Nathan led out to the first mark til I pushed a gybe inside and he rushed into a capsize. By the time he was up he was too far behind, so the golden child was out on the first start. Bora also headed in to save his kit.

The second race looked a bit ordinary for me, with John leading the way, and me plowing through the gybes in last place. I did a good bottom mark gybe rounding and passed enough boats to progress to the next race. Amac and Rod were eliminated.

4 boats left, Brownie, Lochie, John and I.

I led around the marks, but John was looking shaky after a capsize on the fist gybe.

On the work, John overhauled Lochie to progress to the final.

In the final race for the cash, I led but stuffed the gybe, so John pushed it through the inside to take the lead, before promptly dropping the tiller and ejecting from the boat infront of me.

So I took the win and the cash, thankyou very much. I don’t think the assembled crowd were cheering for me as much as they were for John’s stack -to be posted on YouTube soon.

I wonder what I can use that cash for?

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 24th, 2009 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Moth. 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.