Thanks to the photos posted on the Greenwich Flying Squadron facebook page by Christian Charalmbous I have found out where Joli and Avalon disappeared to out in front of the Black fleet. Approaching Goat Island for the first time they are a long way in front of the fleet. Avalon to leeward along the Balls Head shore looks to be in front of Joli to windward and if the sequence of Christian’s photos are still in order then Avalon rounded Goat Island first. Joli deserved their win and the photos show that in the strong winds all of the crew were hiking hard on the windward rail. This is a great example for the rest of us as it gets the weight out of the stern and into righting moment. Much further back in the fleet Passion X appears to be trailing the fleet and leaning very hard in an early gust. As the breeze lightened we did make up a lot of ground and I am happy with our performance once we rounded Goat Island in lighter breeze.
After our win the previous week when I had removed a few sails to lighten the boat. That probably did not help in the initial strong wind phase last night but did help as the breeze died. Today I removed our No 4 genoa and safety equipment surplus to our Category 7 requirements. At home I have weighed all the equipment and as of today 164 kg has been removed from Passion X. There is still a code zero and a few fenders to come off so in total we might just get to removing 200 kg.
Avalon and Joli approaching Goat Island photo courtesy of Christian Charalambous.
Sweet Chariot in front of Passion X on a big lean
Passion X working to Goat Island chasing the fleet. Photo courtesy of Christian Charalambous