The take away from tonight’s race is that we did a good start and hung on for a fifth place on handicap against some pretty stiff opposition. The score sheet is currently showing sixth place due to the erroneous inclusion of Much Ado V which if you were to believe the result sheet beat the MC38 Infotrack home by six minutes. I am sure the Beck team rivalry will have that sorted out pretty soon and Much Ado V relegated back to a DNF. That will leave Infotrack only a couple of minutes ahead of Dump Truck which is a pretty impressive performance by the Ker 11.3 considering they had not read the current season course sheet and took a detour. Including the detour they still finished seven minutes in front of Meridian and had three minutes to spare on handicap.
Time will sort out the handicap for the MC38 and team Beck and aside from them the outstanding result on the night was from Meridian who turned the tables on sistership Joli from last week.
We made a well timed start from the club end and allowed for the massive header so we could clear Onion Point in the lead. Once we turned the corner there was nothing until a fresh breeze sprang up from behind and brought Dump Truck and Meridian over the top. We went high and tried to do the same with the next gust but they got their noses around the corner and took off. Dump Truck took off for Cockatoo while Meridian and Passion X headed to Goat Island.
Long before we hit the Balmain shore Infotrack came charging over the top and refused to tack away from the shore line doldrums until clear ahead and giving us dirty air all the way back to the point.
We managed to stay in phase for most of the work to Goat by which time Much Ado V, Utopia and Jackpot had made up ground.
We did well on the square to Long Nose on the shore side of the fleet and managed to round behind just Meridian and Infotrack. Unfortunately the wheels fell of a bit on the reach along the Balmain shore where we lost Utopia and Jackpot.
Humbug was our last chance to make up ground but it was not to be and we were fortunate to hold out the fast finishing Joli to the line.