The Greenwich Flying Squadron sailors had a great day with Joli, Agrovation and Passion X first, second and third respectively of the series entrants in Division 1 and Hasta La Vista first in Division 2. Adrian and Michael respectively in Joli and Agrovation sailed exceptionally well in the light and tricky conditions and deserve their places. It is ironic that these two club members were giving me the biggest tease over our handicap in the series and they still beat us.
The light air and incoming tide was always going to help those who rounded the top mark early and had the benefit of the tide to pull away from their competitors still beating into it.
On Passion X we were very fortunate to recover from a decision not to cover the fleet tacking back to the shore behind us. We started well behind Britannia, who was pretending to be a much bigger yacht, right on the stern of the committee boat and lifted as soon as we could. Further up the harbour there were some right hand shifts but down at our end there was mostly lifts on starboard. Foreign Affairs and Joli were two of the early yachts to tack away for the shelter from the tide and into a progressive lift. Amante and Agrovation soon followed. Allegro was out in the middle with us and we tacked back to the shore taking their stern. We tacked back to starboard before reaching the line of breeze but had enough to just keep pace with most of the windward fleet including Amante and Agrovation. Foreign Affairs disappeared over the horizon and Hitchhike and Joli were now well ahead. Allegro came back on one of the few right hand shifts but we managed to cross her bow for a small gain for the two tacks. We were still mid stream and in too much tide as the saw tooth pattern on the chart plot shows and as soon as we headed I tacked back for our get out of jail shift for the day. That one shift let us cross Amante, Hanni and Agrovation. Having got out of the tide we short tacked Steele Point and the baths until we worked into a nice lift towards the mark. The lift disappeared up near the east channel mark and I tacked back to avoid the dirty air of Amante and Hitchhike just as the lift returned. That may or may not have cost us a little as there is no telling how badly we might have fared in the direct dirty air for the work into the mark.
Along the leg into the mark Joli was badly headed and crossed the closest we had been since the start but we did not follow and they picked up a good lift along the shore gaining back a considerable amount of the ground they had lost with the big header. Then they were next around the mark to Foreign affairs and took off with the tide for a substantial lead over Hitchhike, Passion X and Amante.
The run back was very quiet. Amante went inshore and picked up breeze while Hitchhike went wider and picked up tide. Around Steele Point we were defending our position from Hanni and Agrovation and came in closer than we normally do but to our surprise we passed a becalmed Amante to windward while Hitchhike to leeward picked up breeze and pulled away a minute by the shortened course finish in Rose Bay.
We would have done better defending our good start and going back into Rose Bay in phase with the fleet. Fortunately we had the one right hand shift to get back across to the fleet but by the look of the results there were others no so lucky and they languished out on the course as the breeze died.
The third place on handicap for the series was pleasing considering how much of the sailing was conducted to windward and with a 1,3,3 we have a good lead in the progressive point score.
The saw tooth pattern of our windward works against the tide is pretty evident as is the get out of jail lift in the middle of the chart plot.