before the race the concern was whether we would have enough breeze for a race. After deciding on the largest genoa for the race the breeze freshened to gusts of 17 knots but there were lots of holes so we decided to keep the full sail area.
For the unusual north west breeze we planned to start near the club and be on the leeward side of Humbug and hopefully in better breeze. It did not work out in practice as Avalon started further to windward and carried a gust through Humbug and out into an early lead. The rest of us battled for clear air and eventually we abandoned our leeward position for one with clear air following Much Ado V, Dump Truck and Avalon. the big Ausreo was putting in an impressive performance and mixing it with the best at the front of the fleet, Avalon exlcuded. It was a long reach and then run from Cockatoo Island around Long Nose and then to take Goat Island to starboard. Much Ado V took the low path away from Balls Head and seemed to be heading for Goat to port but at the last minute changed course and came reaching up from below to regain a spot near the front of the Avalon pursuit. Flashback ran down on top of Utopia and Passion X as we lined up the navigation mark at Goat Island looking for a safe passage. We held back waiting for the clear ahead Blue fleet to round the mark and found a safe spot behind Caliban and inside Utopia. Now we were in the wind shadow of Goat Island and in the eddys from the island the wind was doing strange things. Utopia picked up a gust from behind and ran over the top of Passion X. Presently all chaos broke out in the fleet as a rain squall brought winds of 32 knots from different directions. We flattened the sails and did our best to negotiate the many yachts. Out of the chaos Dump Truck emerged in front and Lisdillon came up from behind. The rest we could not see. The next we saw of Lisdillon was when they crossed us going into Long Nose. We held on longer in a lift and by the time we tacked on the next header had made a very large gain on Lisdillon. Irikandji came out of nowhere to be just astern but we picked a small breeze and pulled away again. Dump Truck, Ausreo and Utopia were parked off Greenwich Point so we sailed the long way around and eventually skirted Utopia and wore down Ausreo but could not make any headway on Dump Truck.
Our fourth across the line was only good enough for 6th place as Avalon took the win by a 11 minutes from Ausreo Much Ado V and Dump Truck. I had thought that our 6 minute lead on Irikandji would be enough but we fell short by a minute and thirty eight seconds and had to settle for sixth place. In the pointscore the sixth is our worst place so it became our drop and we moved to the top of the table courtesy of the absence of Meridian and Joli who are cruising elsewhere this week. Our fourth across the line puts up temporarily third on the fastest times table courtesy of the race when no one finished being included in all competitors series. This means that Passion X which has raced in every event can drop the 11 point while anyone who was absent from a race gets to drop the did not start points but still carries the 11 points from the race where no one finished.
A bit of a lean in the squall
Dump Truck emerges out of the rain
Maximum wind speed was 31.7 knots. Photo taken with a wet phone.
Top boat speed was 8.1 knots as we were beating into the squall. It would have been much higher has we been around Goat Island when it hit.
Dump Truck sails show how variable the wind was. We are tight reaching and their jib is blowing out to windward
A close rounding of Goat Island. Flasback, Utopia, Dump Truck, Ausreo and Much Ado V are all in the picture