Another Friday afternoon at Balmain and another windy day. It seems that the No 3 jib has been the only headsail to see the light of day. That is not exactly right as we had the No 1 light up for one twilight race but apart from that the Carbon Sports No 3 has been the only headsail used.
With the appropriate level of caution we left the reef in the main from last Wednesday night and made good progress in our pursuit of Irukandji and Odyssey.
Irukandji with a full main started to pull away on the run back from Goat Island so we took out the reef to try to keep up. That worked for the downwind portion of the race but once back on the wind the breeze increased so we struggled with the extra sail area.
Avalon did catch and pass us and we never caught Irukandji so it was a fourth place out of a diminished fleet of six yachts.
I don’t mind sailing with the No 3 jib. It has a very nice shape and covers a reasonable wind range. Also it is good practice for the new Passion that is under construction as she will have non overlapping jibs although about 30% bigger than Passion X