Monday night, race 3 of the August series. With two very poor results in the first two races, we had some cathching up to do, so we brought a full crew......8 people on a Sigma.....where are they all supposed to sit?!
The first leg was a short beat to H, with a pin biased line and breeze going left, almost looked like a port tack flyer, but we didn't think there was enough bias to make it stick.
We started pin end on starboard with the intention of getting over to the right as soon as there was a gap so that we we're in a position to control the port layline. We had good pace and tacked across the whole fleet, and then went too far right. The left hand side was massively favoured and Farr Out, having banged the far left corner, cashed in, first to the windward mark by a country mile!
Now to try to work out how to hoist the kite...the trouble with having lots of crew is everybody assumes somebody else is doing 'that'.....so the kite goes up (not tailed), pole bouncing around (no downhaul), why is the kite flogging? (because nobody has the sheet!). Once she was under control we set about catching Farr Out, we let Sapphire pass (no point fighting boats that should already be 2 minutes in front, just let them through and cover!) we managed to get an overlap on Farr Out and Sapphire by the gybe mark, and we we're let off the hook big time by Amorosa who could have protested as we dived inside her at J!
A late drop put us in Sapphire's dirty air on the start of the long beat, so we we're forced to tack away to the right, even though we knew we had to go left. Sapphire and Farr Out went far left and Farr out gained again, having to duck our transom at one point as we crossed on Starboard, fortunately they carried on out to the right and we got the left, and we more than made up the gap again by the end of the lap. One more lap to sort out our crew work - but still none of us could remember who had done what on the previous lap so it was back to square one!
Stayed left on the beat, as did everybody, so no big changes, at the windward mark we got in an allmighty tangle with the kite, some frantic foredeck work and halyard pumping and we we're back in control, just had to control the gap to Sapphire and the win was ours.......looked like there was a bit of a luffing match going on behind us with Farr Out and Prime Time, which caught our attention for a few minutes....we even thought we saw contact at the gybe mark?!
Early drop, great rounding, far left corner of the beat, jobs a goodun! Win by several clear minutes..........maybe the bottom isn't as filthy as we thought!
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