Martin – The Forward Hand’s Work is Never Done
The Afterguard
It was a wonderful sunny day on Sydney Harbour and the perfect setting for a winter race. In contrast to the five yachts that fronted last week in gale conditions the temperate afternoon brought out nineteen starters.
We started at the pin end working up to the start line on a very tight angle with only Krakatoa below us when we were headed and could just make the pin with no place for Krakatoa. She tried gamely to get up to the pin but went past head to wind with the genoa blowing back towards Passion. We did our best to avoid them and went past head to wind too and were disappointed when they failed to do penalty turns after the start. With that delay we were late onto the reach to the heads and low on the course. To windward the fleet was reaching away in fresher conditions leading me to think our goose was cooked for the afternoon.
It was a slow procession to the heads so I handed the helm to Frank and went below to plan some routine maintenance on Passion by finding the appropriate part number for our shower and bilge pump repair kit. When I emerged the breeze had freshened on our side of the course and Frank had Passion right back in the running for a good result.
We had good company from Silky who politely stayed to leeward until she could clear our stern and then gave us a bit of clear air by going high. We rounded the mark on Silky’s stern and set about working back to Steel Point. The outgoing tide was meant to be working against good windward angles but so large were the wind shifts that you had to take them when they came and the resulting tracks look quite impressive.
Nice windward angles against an outgoing tide thanks to big wind shifts
Silky looked like she was history out deep into the mid harbour but she picked a miracle shift to come out well ahead of us by Steel Point. Meanwhile we had been picking the shifts in closer to Vaucluse and doing quite well against our nearby competitors. One of our benchmark yachts L’eau Co was close at hand giving us a good guide to our speed and I was delighted that we were able to hold her out for the day in conditions that usually favour her. Poor Viva our substitute benchmark for the light air days we do not so well was very far behind. Rainbow was uncharacteristically far behind with possibly her worst performance relative to Passion in many years.
In Rose Bay I sensed a progressive right hand shift was developing so we went early and almost caught Silky but she crossed and managed to keep ahead for the rest of the day.
For several anxious moments we endured quiet conditions around Point Piper watching Gwhizz and L’eau Co catch us but once around we pulled away and rebuilt a handy lead.
Kevin took Passion home and across the line for a good fleet position considering the light airs. On handicap we managed a seventh place. The big black genoa sheeted one hole forward for the light airs and the backstay eased gave us plenty of power whenever the breeze kicked above the six knots that seemed to prevail for the afternoon and it was one of our best light air performances to date.