Last race of 2016
30 October 2016
Sadly it was the last race of the year today, and an early departure for a 1030 start.
Jonny was with me for the first time and we found a fairly steady F2 from the East. Five boats came out to race. Dick tried to get the race off a few minutes early as we were all milling around out there ready to go, but the start was a bit chaotic due to several getting caught by the tide and general confusion around the gate start so he had to abort the start and do the countdown all over again.
On the restart we were pleased to be first away and began a long beat to Steel Can out to the east, beating into the easterly wind and into the tide. All boats seem to determine that the best course was to tack quite close inshore to keep away from the worst of the tidal current, the GPS smartphone track log below illustrates what we did. Jonny was on the helm and seemed to be enjoying it. We felt like we were almost inside the beach huts at one point but we were probably several metres offshore all the time!
After an hour of that we were in third place as we went around Steel Can and began a reach out to Outfall. We looked behind expecting Cabre under spinnaker to catch us but we were about ten minutes ahead of them and they didn't really gain on us which was most gratifying!
Around Outfall and another reach back to the finish line, a bit more wind now perhaps F3 so we were doing a good speed as we crossed the line, still in third place after 1h 38m elapsed time.
Back on the berth by 1220 we looked for lunch in the clubhouse only to find no catering today - so I didn't hang around the clubhouse as much as I'd have liked to, heading off to the petrol station for a sandwich.
Elsa was third today and fourth overall in the 2016 series, I'm happy with that. A new mainsail is ordered for next year and Ron in Cabre has ordered a whole load of new kit to try and get back towards me so we're all looking forward to 2017!
Sadly it was the last race of the year today, and an early departure for a 1030 start.
Jonny was with me for the first time and we found a fairly steady F2 from the East. Five boats came out to race. Dick tried to get the race off a few minutes early as we were all milling around out there ready to go, but the start was a bit chaotic due to several getting caught by the tide and general confusion around the gate start so he had to abort the start and do the countdown all over again.
On the restart we were pleased to be first away and began a long beat to Steel Can out to the east, beating into the easterly wind and into the tide. All boats seem to determine that the best course was to tack quite close inshore to keep away from the worst of the tidal current, the GPS smartphone track log below illustrates what we did. Jonny was on the helm and seemed to be enjoying it. We felt like we were almost inside the beach huts at one point but we were probably several metres offshore all the time!
After an hour of that we were in third place as we went around Steel Can and began a reach out to Outfall. We looked behind expecting Cabre under spinnaker to catch us but we were about ten minutes ahead of them and they didn't really gain on us which was most gratifying!
Around Outfall and another reach back to the finish line, a bit more wind now perhaps F3 so we were doing a good speed as we crossed the line, still in third place after 1h 38m elapsed time.
Back on the berth by 1220 we looked for lunch in the clubhouse only to find no catering today - so I didn't hang around the clubhouse as much as I'd have liked to, heading off to the petrol station for a sandwich.
Elsa was third today and fourth overall in the 2016 series, I'm happy with that. A new mainsail is ordered for next year and Ron in Cabre has ordered a whole load of new kit to try and get back towards me so we're all looking forward to 2017!
Comments
Post a Comment