Breitling Day 3 Report

Day 3 of the regatta was much like the first two days, no wind in the morning and gradually by 11am, 4 – 6 knots from everywhere!

Our aim for the day was to get better starts and then try to stay towards the top part of the fleet.

The first race was similar to the second race on day 1, where there was a massive wind shift to the left of about 100 degrees, but it only hooked in on the last run about half-way down.

We gybed earlier than the boats ahead of us and got the new breeze first, bag down jib up and beat to the finish….. we must have got through 4 boats to end 4th across the line.  That’s better.

The course was quickly turned around and the race officer was keen to get underway as soon as possible, but the wind was just not settled enough yet.

We had a few attempts to get the second race going, which finally happened under the black flag.  We had another reasonable start and headed towards the left and more pressure.

We are trying not to do too much upwind, but when most of the fleet want to go where you are, tacking out of bad air becomes the norm.  Always weighing up the lesser of the two evils.

Good race, finished 8th.

The breeze got up pretty quickly just before the start of the third race, which caught a few unaware.  Some of us didn’t even have time to put on our hiking pants….boy can you tell the difference in your little pins!

We had an OK start, below the pack and headed left as we wanted.  We just couldn’t get the boat to get up and go and had to tack out of our lane not long after the start.

But even then we had already made good gains on the guys that had tacked off earlier as the wind was moving left.  The race was much longer as the breeze was up, so there was still plenty of race track left.

We decided to protect the left but still keep in touch with the fleet.  We rounded the top about 12th.  We had a wobbly moment and thought that a gybe was the call, to protect the fleet behind that had already gybed off.  But after 100m or so, we gybed back.

Now we were the most left boat and in prime position to round the bottom mark to port, on the inside. There was a lot more pressure where we were and when we tacked over to Starboard, we were back in the chocolates.

We eventually got the boat feeling more alive and in balance and managed to hang in to round the top in a close 6th, but there was a small pile up on the top mark and we were too indecisive as to where we needed to go and end up sailing on the outside of the 3 boats, allowing the AUS team to get inside of us, preventing us from gybing immediately.

The Pressure filled in from behind and we watched the fleets make huge gains on the left of us (right side of the course), we got a little nervous and started coming high to protect but at the same time sailing higher angles and in more dirty air.

We lost 4 boats.  Not really sure if we had done something different (stayed out on the left where we were) things would have been different – when the pressure comes from behind, the behind catch up.

10th is still fair, and after these 3 races we are lying in 15th, not far off in points from a few boats in front.

A few things where highlighted on the course and we have some manoeuvres to work on for the rest of the regatta; Top mark roundings (being more committed to either standing on our doing the gybe set); Bottom Mark roundings (we seem to cram up and stop, especially in the lighter breeze – need to be more free and turn smoother). 

Otherwise, 3 races today in a bit more breeze (with trees are rustling already..)

Dom, Pen and Kim