Another message from the roving reporter and is evil (and smiling) henchmen…
Today we actually have plenty of time to write a report… the race committee decided to get us out of bed around 6.15, to start a first race at 8.30. Gerrit did a superb job getting everybody up (and running, more or less). Some quotes: "why don't we go to the med, there you only have wind around 13.00 h…", "cofffeeeee…", "that bloody Iphone (more on that later)", etc. etc.. But the weather is actually stunningly beautiful: sunshine, 16 kn of breeze, nice (semi-surfable) waves, the weather you would expect in champagne sailing conditions.
The race in a few sentences… Won at the start, kept on winning during the first two legs, lots huge during the second beat, and won big time during the last downwind leg.
The start like Laurent explained was safe and usefull. We created the opportunity to tack immediately to the right but no other boat could until we tacked. We sailed a strong upwind leg getting to the topmark in 8th position. Downwind two boats were overtaken.
The second beat we choose the right side of the course again since it paid during the first beat. With some clouds coming thru creating a "lefty" (wind shifting to the left or anti-clockwise, …"duh" …). To be brief, in short, without explanation, this was completely, utterly, and totally not right. We went from hero to zero in one leg (we lost 12-14 places). Some good sailing at the top mark got us back to 18th place but we had plenty to do on the downwind leg.
Laurent made us gybe early at the mark and we pushed extremely hard to catch the group just in front of us. We managed to catch 4 boats during the downwind leg, and at the downwind mark we squeezed ourselves around the mark catching HEC and Brunel in the process. Eventually we ended up in a 12th place, with Ville the Geneve just in front in 10th position, and Saint Malo a further 5 places up in 5th position. But the organisation decided that it was plenty of racing for today, making sure that we could enter the harbour without banging our keel against the ridge in front of the entrance.
Another day in the life of a Mumma Duck(er).
Signing off, Rob and Ties.
15 july 2010 - Ties about today and some onboard action:
