Passion X seems to be stuck in no man’s land in the RANSA Winter Wednesday Series between the yachts in Division 1s and the yachts in Division 1.
On some dodgy back of the envelope calculations we would have been at or very near the front of Div 1 yesterday while we were four minuted adrift of the second last fastest yacht in Div 1s. We might have enjoyed a good race at the front of Div 1 while in Div 1s it was a different matter. Passion X has a good turn of speed off the breeze so we stayed with Marloo and Sorcerer from the start to the leeward mark. Once on the breeze the more powerful and larger boats powered away. We were pleasantly surprised we managed with the No 1 Genoa and the full mainsail in the 15 knots of breeze but it was right at the top end of our range. When we turned Blue Chip was already a couple of minutes in front but close enough for us to try to follow her tacking angle. We went for speed rather than height and yesterday that might not have been the optimum angle as we had to go West of the Sow and Pigs and tack to the mark while Blue Chip, Marloo and Sorcerer picked up a lift ahead and above to clear the mark without needing to tack.
The larger genoa compared to last week helped in the light air around Point Piper but we were still four minutes behind the tail as they rounded Point Piper. We had a good run around Shark Island and did not lose a lot of ground for the rest of the race so we were closer at the finish than last week but still lonely out the back.
We had the optimum sails up for the race and made few mistakes so that is about as fast as we can go give or take a couple of minutes. We will do a couple of minutes better on the rare occasions the angle to the top mark is tighter and the leg back to Steel Point is broader but that wind angle is not common. Windward leeward races are not our strong point so any lucky shifts would be negated by our slower overall performance on the downwind leg.
Winter Wednesday race 2 tracks took us West of the Sow and Pigs and we needed a short tack to clear the mark.
The truth is we are sailing pretty well as expected but I expected a rating of 1.05 at most based on the lighter Didi 38 version. I added a bit more sail area and righting moment to compensate for our heavier hull but was surprised that our club rating came out at 1.11 with spinnakers and 1.02 without spinnakers. I was looking forward to sailing against Amante and Allegro and Agrovation and Izzi and it will be interesting to see how much the rating comes down when the hull is officially weighted and we lower the default crew weight.
We managed to stay with Marloo and Sorcerer on the reach.
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