We had our first Tuesday night buoy race last night. The RC did there very best being out early to set up the course and leave itself plenty of options but as with any best laid plans, you can't control mother nature!
After meeting at the boat and getting her all rigged up we headed out early to practice as this crew was completely different from last weekends team.
The breeze was great, a steady 10 knots gusting to 13......so the very end of the range for the #1.
We got the course from the RC and just as the AP flag came down the breeze clocked west, resulting in a 50 degree TWA beat to the first mark. With it being an evening race there wasn't sufficient time to reset the course, we had to live with what he had.
Div 2 left first and then we entered the starting box and we knew it was all about starting on time and with speed as this was going to be drag race, and whomever got out first was going to control things. We timed things perfectly hitting the pin end just as the horn went and fully powered up. We had the Express less than a boat length to weather of us but we were bow out, which meant we had them just where we wanted them.
We rounded first, and jibed and unfortunately it was too hot an angle to get the kite up. EX - J 29 tried but it definately was the wrong thing to do.
On the second leg there was now traffic to deal with as we were catching the boats that started earlier......We managed to get 3 of the 5 on this leg but it was close as when we rounded and headed back to #3 we were having to weave between the oncoming boats. We managed to put Avalanche a little further back and Jabiru - J 35 was also slipping back!
We picked off another boat on the 3rd leg and now just need a clean mark rounding and we should be good......then we saw the D9 boys and thought, uh oh, they are awfully close to us, they may get us on time. So we pushed and trimmed hard all the way to the finish, passing the last of Div 2. Avalanche tried one last ditch effort to catch us by getting there kite up but that just slowed them down.
We finished and got the watches out and low and behold, we got 1st by just 10 seconds of the MH J 29 District 9!
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