With the arrival of Agrovation last year and Saoirse this year to join with Worlds Apart as bigger longer faster yachts our proper place on fastest time is probable fourth. Last night we hung on for a fourth fastest in very light conditions and we should be content with that. Unfortunately as Martin noted we have a crew of Laser sailors who want to be first.
While it was a frustrating night being caught in various wind shadows it was still a very enjoyable one and post race when the adrenalin settles down you realize how fortunate we are to have the opportunity to sail in such testing conditions on what must be the best twilight sailing area in the world.
We set our largest genoa which is best for reaching and running and used it to good purpose in the light dying conditions at the end of the race to stay ahead of the following pack and almost catch Saoirse. Worlds Apart bolted at the start and was not to be seen all night. Agrovation was naughty at the start which left us in their dirty air all the way through Humbug. We stayed in touch with Agrovation all the way around Cockatoo and on the way to Goat Island but lost her on the Balmain shore when I was too timid to tack in front of the ferry. The extra few meters needed to clear the ferry left us in the wind shadow where we languished until Agrovation had drawn away and Tartan, Gwizz and Saoirse had sailed past. Eventually we edged out of the wind shadow and took off after the five yachts in front. Now we were running and reaching and using the large genoa to advantage. On the long slow reach back to Humbug we managed to overtake Tartan and Gwhizz while Saoirse used her long water line and large sail area to power away. French Connection put in a late appearance down to leeward but we managed to bear away in a puff and get clear air to windward of her. In the last run to the finish line Saoirse found her own patch of light air while Kevin held our big genoa out to windward so we almost caught her on the line.
The tracks show we did some pretty nice angles out of Humbug on the way to Cockatoo Island and if you look have in the bottom right corner you can see a little deviation when we almost tacked but found the ferry dead in front so had to go back.
Good angles out of Humbug.