Seabreeze and BOM got it wrong yesterday. We all looked at the forecast and the breeze in the morning and decided to safely go for the #1 rig on the 18s, which in hindsight was not the best choice.
The Rag, 7 and Fiat got on the water early for a bit of a tune up. As we launched, Geezer again failed to draw breath as he asked if the start was early today? No, it was just a couple of learners going out early to work out how to tack and gybe.
Anyway, being early-on-the-water was a bit of an eye opener. It was a bit breezier than we expected, but we assumed that it’d be windy at Bradley’s and light by Beashel, which is pretty standard. Ummm… no.
By the time the start rolled around, it was low hooks. The first work was still a bit up and down with the breeze going pretty hard left to right. We started well, but couldn’t cross out of Bradleys and ended up doing a few hand brake turns while ducking starboard tackers on our way out. We didn’t really recover well up the work from there, but still rounded in the top 5 or so, this week taking our 1-minute handicap advantage on the first lap rather than the last.
The former Manly 16’s team on Thurlow Fisher were smoking up the first work on their first hitout with their new rig and recut main. They lead easily to the middle mark, but came unstuck by the time they got to Shark Island.
We weaved our way through the carnage downwind to round 4th or 5th on the way back upwind, watching 7 and Active from behind again.
The wind kept building and despite shortening the strops, we maxed out on our vang again. The next couple of laps were a matter of hanging on, with a lot of boats littering the course after failed bearaways and dodgey gybes.
At the finish, 7 and Active decided to sail above the finish line, then Seve stepped off the boat during the last gybe to the line, and Active sailed back and through for another win, with us coming through for 2nd, and 2 minutes off our handicap.
Thankfully we’ve got a scratch race next weekend. So at least we’ll have a better guage of where everyone is at.
Only 10 of the 22 boats actually crossed the finish line this week, which given it’s only week 2 and it was top end big-rig, it’s probably to be expected. The excuses will surely start to run out as things drag on towards February.
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Saturday was not so windy thankfully, and for the first time in a while, I managed to take the Moth sailing and not break a main foil. Phew.
We had 4 boats at Woollahra for the 2nd race of the season, so the fleet is still building slowly. John’s boat has been sold to a new sailor, and a new shipment of Bladeriders is due in November, and Ben’s replacement mainfoil arrives this week, so hopefully we will slowly build a more regular racing fleet. Hopefully.
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thedailysail.com is running Frank’s article with a nice photo of the Rag, and the new 18’s site has a bunch of good photos.