The weather was perfect for a sail on the harbour and we were given our first true beat to the top mark for the season.
The breeze had already kicked on to fifteen knots by the time we were selecting sails so we opted for the No 3 genoa and full mainsail. With this rig we had a comfortable beat to windward regularly hitting 7.3 knots but occasionally slipping back to six and taking time to rebuild up to 7 knots. Blue Chip demoralized me by blasting away to windward as would be expected of a yacht with a 200 mm deeper bulb keel that weighs an extra 100 kgs. Their extra hull width possibly help them with more form stability too and I struggle to understand why the ORCi gives us similar ratings.
The top yachts in the Division 1 that started 5 minutes behind had I believe gained about a minute or two on us by the time we were abeam of their top mark so I am disappointed we are not in that division.
By our top mark at Cannai Point we were a couple of minutes behind Marloo and Sorcerer and hoping for some gain on the downwind leg. It was not to be as the wind was too light for our small headsail compared to the big overlapping ones on Marloo and Sorcerer. The breeze did lighten on the run home and that was not helpful with the small headsail.
We sailed pretty well to our speed targets hitting 8.5 knots on a beam reach on the way back to the finish line but our competition kept their distance ahead and we finished last by 3 minutes 57 seconds. Our handicap did bring us home 12 seconds in front of Duende who seemed to get on the wrong side of a couple of shifts.
Our tracks to windward look pretty impressive in terms of angle to the wind in a slack tide but the reality is that we were well beat. We were 4 minutes slower than our average result to date against Blue Chip and 2 minutes 13 seconds slower on average against Sorcerer. Against Duende and Marloo we were 15 seconds better than average but even being better than average against Marloo left us over a minute shy on handicap.
We could not have carried any more sail to windward although we could have carried a reef in the main and the full genoa and then taken the reef out at the top mark. A couple of knots lighter and we would have carried the No 1 all day and a couple of knots stronger and the No 3 would have been fine down wind. On the square run home the extra two knots of wind would have added 0.8 knots of boat speed.
We have just three races left before some of us travel to Croatia for the World Laser Masters championships and it would be good to have at least one race with the breeze in our sweet spot before we finish for the season.
I should have checked the photo before I left the yacht for the evening but if you look hard you will see the tacks in the tracks