The conditions could not have suited Passion X better. The beam reach up the course and the less than hard on work back to Steele Point were the conditions that Passion was made for so we just had to hang on for the work into Rose Bay and the one back around Shark Island to score our first fastest time result for the season. Last year in similar light conditions we also scored a fastest times when we flicked from starboard onto port on the way to the top mark without changing direction. Today’s race had none of this luck and was more of a drag race out and a anxious work back to the finish. I made one small improvement for the day and that was to put 1.75 mm dyneema tails onto the spinnaker halyards snapshackles so that the idle ends could be raised to the top of the mast. This reduces the drag from the three 12 mm lines and also takes 5 kg of rope off of the mast which is equivalent to 20 kg of lead on the keel. Now the read deal would be to replace the alloy mast with a carbon fibre one which would be like adding 200 kg to the keel but that is not going to happen. This was one of our best starts ever as we stayed low enough below the favored start boat end as to not be forced up by leeward yachts. We ducked Britannia’s stern at the last moment and were able to bear away for the line hitting it at speed and on time. From there we were never headed. Initially Allegro was close to leeward and holding her position but Joli reached out from the fleet behind and may have sent some dirty air down the way of Allegro. For the beam reach to the top mark we enjoyed clear air and had good speed so that we pulled out 50 metres on the fleet. Once around the top mark we were 5 degrees off a work into Steele Point and holding our distance from Joli and the chasing fleet. We were well beyond Steele Point when Joli took a small dig into the point and tacked back onto a progressive lift. We were already into the lift and not in a position to tack back until we reached the island. The tack back was into a progressive lift the other way which worked out reasonably well. In the end the angles into Rose Bay were good if not quite as good as Joli’s. On the leg around Shark Island both Joli and Passion X suffered from a 1S fleet yacht sailing close above us but I figured they were so fast we should just go as high as possible and get into the clear air behind their stern. We were very fortunate sailing into the mark at the bottom of Shark Island to get a lift around the mark and avoid two tack which may well have put Joli into the lead. With this last stroke of luck we reached away for the finish looking over our shoulder at the fast finishing Joli. Behind her we could now see Hanni and the fast reaching Fidelis as well as Allegro who had hung on well in the light conditions to score 4th on handicap. As I said at the beginning we could not have had better conditions and it was good to have two GFS yachts fighting our for fastest time. The win over Joli was pleasing as they had all the J112 experts on board and between Steve and Adrian they would have thrown everything as us. When we looked at the progress scores we were surprised to see that we had been elevated to second place last week which I can only presume was a correction to the results so with our win today we are still on just seven points. We need these points as we will be away for the last three weeks of the series as we go to the Laser masters in the Netherlands. In the meantime I am expecting no mercy from the handicapper for the rest of the season.
Not bad angles into Rose Bay but the progressive shift off Steele Point suited Joli well.