With the Laser still making the way back from Mandurah we took the opportunity to enter Passion in her first Greenwich Flying Squadron down harbour race. Ron celebrating his birthday came all the way from Manly to sail all the way back again and possibly would have jumped ship and swam ashore if he had know what a slow ride we would have back home. In a fresh breeze we swept out of Humbug ahead of larger and faster yachts and held a good position relative to our peers while the breeze was fresh. The outgoing tide was sweeping us along at a good rate and making the tacking angles on the chart plotter look spectacular.
Passion tacking angles with an outgoing tide
Mid harbour as the breeze lightened we took an unfavourable knock which allowed Gwhiz to catch us. In the dying breeze we never looked like catching her again although we did get up to her transom on the turn at Manly East. Now we had turned against the tide and with the wind dropping to 6 knots we made very slow progress. Around Fort Denison we changed course to avoid a large P&O liner exiting with excited passengers while we wallowed along. A check of the race time limit gave us no reprieve as the limit was 5 hours so we hung on to the slow end to finish our first Down Harbour Race. A special thanks to Ron for crewing on his birthday.