The Summer series at Greenwich Flying Squadron twilight races is a separate series that does not count towards the overall season result. Under these circumstances it is easier to be charitable to our fellow sailors when then luff above head to wind and tack on top of you on the line. Meanwhile the fleet disappears around Onion Point as we struggle to build up enough speed for the rudder to work. No one it seems bothered to take a penalty for a collision to leeward so indeed it must be social sailing. It is surprising how fast the back of the fleet can sail especially when they are on the right side of a few large wind shifts. I discovered this when we had to tack onto port at the line of moored yacht near the Woolwich marina. To avoid the following parade of starboard tackers we had to go the long way around back where we came from and away from the big lift along the Hunters Hill shore. The tracks from the chartplotter show the zig zag progress on the first leg up the Hunter Hill shore compared to the straight line on the second time around. To add to our woes for the evening we experienced a 20 degree header just as we cleared Long Nose point on the way to Goat Island.
Contrasting windward works up the Hunters Hill shore line
By Goat Island we had worked up into the tail of the fleet and were just ahead of French Connection and still in contact with Farrst Company and Izzi. We did quite well on the reach and run back to Cockatoo Island and did our normal wide sweep of the wind shadow in the lee of the island. To our surprise the competitors who took the inside running kept breeze the whole way around so we hardened up at the tail of the fleet again. That was the end of the unexpected wind patterns for the evening. Our work up Humbug was efficient so that by the finish we had put Izzi, Fast Company and French Connection behind us and some order seemed to have been restored in our sailing universe. We had in the finish only a minute and a half deficit on Worlds Apart and were in turn a similar amount of time in front of Izzi. While nothing could save us from a second last on handicap the fourth fastest was some consolation considering the adversities of the evening. A lot went right on the day. I had spent a good morning working on the new build and still found time to pick up some parts for Passion and do a repair to the head. The evening on the deck at GFS was enjoyed by a large crowd in very pleasant weather and the trip back to the mooring after the raft up was in very light conditions. We were very fortunate with the weather as the conditions the following day would have made sailing and the function impossible.
Strong winds on Thursday would have made sailing difficult