scott.projectsomewhere

So it’s a week later, and it’s taken me almost that long to put out the fires that started with our failure to get a 5 race regatta off in 3 days. Such is life.

So to dredge it all up again, let’s go back and have a look at the weekend that was…

Friday was a beautifully warm and sunny day, at times. Everyone seemed keen to get out there and have a go, but the wind didn’t want to cooperate… surprise surprise.

We postponed on shore for a bit, then the 12s looked like they were moving out in the harbour, and Ian Sim had made it around from Balmoral in his scow. There must’ve been wind out there somewhere.

So the postponement came down and we headed out to the start. The first bunch made it through Rose Bay and onto the course area with no dramas. I pumped and rocked my way out there after them, but the rest of the fleet sat becalmed in the bay, for over an hour.

The RO decided to start anyway, not wanting to upset the boats that were sitting around waiting for the start for a long time. I was making my way down the course with Nathan & Ayden after doing a lap when the preparatory signal went up.

By the time I got to the line, I was 3 odd minutes late, and the 10 or so boats that had started on time were a couple of hundred metres away.

At the top mark, I’d passed a couple, and by the bottom mark, I was sitting in 4th behind Peter Harney in his low rider, Phil and Dave Lister.

But by this stage the race had been abandoned. Some of the late boats in Rose Bay had been towed out to the line and started, others were minutes later and not happy. The race would’ve likely been protested if it went ahead, and the abandonment was anyway.

By now it was past 4pm and the prospect of another start was a little grim, so racing was canceled for the day.

On the way in a couple of boats managed to fly with a little kinetic assistance, and Amac had a few people out for some short bursts of airtime on the prototype Mach2.

Saturday rolls around for a 10am start. Again some are keen, some are not so keen.

We postpone, and postpone as Rose Bay sits in complete glassout. By 1pm, a couple of people have headed home, and a couple more are threatening to de-rig.

By 2.30 or so, we’ve got a little breeze filling in, and we head out again for a start.

Race 1 starts again in a 4-5 knot Easterly. Not enough to fly, but enough to get to the wing bar at times.

Off the line, the lightweights Lauren in the demo FX, and Ayden were looking good. Golden Boy Nathan was returning from an OCS.

Pete Harney quickly established a lead in the lowrider, rounding the top mark 20 metres ahead. Nathan came back through the fleet at the tricky end of the course to round in 2nd, then me, and Phil Stevo right behind. Everything nice and close.

On the downwind, Pete stayed ahead, and I moved into 2nd. Robbo and Doink on the other Mach2s started to move up the places. Phil on my old Prowler was doing well in about 7th, considering he was sailing with no cams on the mast.

The next work got a bit tricky, with the breeze fading and swinging around. Pete dropped out of pressure at the top, and I rounded a few metres ahead of Nathan. The run to the finish was pretty tense, with everything happening veeeery slowly. Nathan rolled me at one stage, but a few gybes later I led again and crossed the line 1st. Mark came through for 3rd and Doink 4th, so a good race.

So now we have 2 days down and 1 race on the board.

Sunday rolls around and the breeze looks good. As good as a 6 knot North-Westerly can look. Shame we couldn’t start at 9am, since by 10 the breeze was on it’s way out.

This time, I got off the line reasonably well again at the pin end. Nathan tied himself around the pin anchor rope and took a while to get free.

Robbo and I did well on the little bit of breeze on the left, and rounded in 1st and 2nd. Down the painfully long run we maintained that, hoping for a shortened course by the time we reached the bottom mark… not to be.

Up the next work, the breeze dropped to sub-3 knots, Pete, Phil Stevo, Phil, Ayden, Stu and Les came through and I rounded the top mark in 8th. This time the downwind took even longer, with effectively no breeze on the course. The flags on the golf club were showing a nice NE, but there was none of that at water level.

Across the line, Pete took the win, with Stu in 2nd & Ayden 3rd. I came through in 7th, luckily a metre or so ahead of my old boat.

But that was it for the morning breeze. It took most boats the next 15-20 minutes to sail the 100m back to the ramp and the breeze stayed shut down for the next few hours.

At about 1.30 there was a murmur of breeze across the sand bar in the corner of the bay, and it looked like it might fill in to a couple of knots, but the RO (after consulting myself and Mark) decided it was unlikely we’d make our regatta by 4pm, and instead of waiting in postponement for another hour or so while the breeze filled, called an end to the event.

And that was that. A long weekend, with not much wind and even less racing.

Thankfully this weekend looks like being a 20 knot Southerly to make up for it. There’s a BYRA Marathon record out there to break I think.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 12:01 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.