I had a lot of trouble finding a clear air lane last night and it shows in the results.
Dump Truck had a crew of professionals on board at that stopped us getting a clear start. We were low on the line and a header made it tight to clear Onion Point so with a mixture of dirty air and pinching we were mid fleet into Humbug. We drifted past Flashback but they and Fireball hugged the shore out of the tide and took the long way but fast way out of Humbug. Sweet Chariot was giving us heaps of dirty air and I made the mistake of trying to lift into the breeze off Greenwich Point which never came. Fireball cleared out to leeward and Flashback climbed out from under us giving us another dose of dirty air.
We has already caught the early fleets and that made finding a clear lane doubly difficult especially when they ignored us when we were on starboard tack and then called starboard on us when we were on port and possible clearing. So we spent the work dipping port tackers and dipping starboard tackers or tacking under starboard tackers. Some of the dips were three yacht deep so long detours.
Now I had the GoPro running for the whole race and can see the ironic grin on my face as we tack away from starboard tackers we had dipped while they were on port.
In this toing and froing we lost track of Much Ado V, Dump Truck and Flashback. Around Goat we had a slow run as the broad reach in pressure turned into a tight beat in fading breeze and post race Flashback’s skipper tells me they had a good run around the island.
We did better on the run home catching Sweet Chariot in Snails Bay and setting our sights on Fireball. Now Fireball did everything they could to stop us passing to leeward and it was touch and go as we went to leeward on the way to the finish line. We seemed to put our nose in front only to have Fireball charge back with wind to windward. At the last minute we nosed ahead by a second to rescue some credibility on the night.
Below are some photos captured from the GoPro video feed
Flashback pinching up to give Passion X dirty air on the way to Goat Island
Fireball doing everything possible to stop Passion X passing to leeward
The finish line coming up
Is that the finish line