Nationals Update (Monday am)
The first race of the inshore series was held on Saturday afternoon in 25 knots with all S38s sporting No 2 & 1 reef. The first race was abandoned after the windward mark broke free but in the resail Festina mastered the conditions for another bullet to follow their offshore win, Pavlova & Persephone finished 2nd & 3rd after both recovering from some horrible looking gybe broaches on the way to the finish.
Sunday was a huge contrast and 3 races were held in 5-10 knots of wind, light air but enough to get around the course. There was even some sunshine later on. Festina & With Alacrity were both OCS in race 1 and after both returned to the start WA recovered to finish 4th and Festina 7th whilst Light got off the line best and won the race in style. In race 2 it was very hard to find space on the start line as I think all the Sigma 38s started to realise the start was a deciding factor in the short windward leeward courses. This time Pavlova got off the port biased start line best and were never caught. Race 3 was abandoned twice on the first beat (once due to a big windshift, then over wrong GPS co-ordinates in the SIs), on the third attempt there was a general recall and eventually the fleet got away under a black flag. Light again revelled in these conditions to win their second race followed by Pavlova & Persephone.
The published results don’t seem to be taking into account the double counting offshore race but by my calculations 2 discard have kicked in and Festina & Pavlova are both on 8 points, Light is on 10 points and With Alacrity and Persephone are both on 11 points. So, agonisingly close with a scheduled 2 races to go.
At the moment (Monday