At 9 am at home it was cold and overcast but by the time we hit the start line the sun was out warming the day. Motoring through Humbug on the way to the start line we spotted our seal enjoying the high tide in the harbour and this time captured him on camera.
A seal in Humbug enjoying the Spring weather.
The north east breeze kicked in as we motored to the line ensuring a good windward work to the top mark. We set the carbon tri radial genoa as we seem to be able to carry her into higher wind strengths successfully and enjoyed a work where we crossed tacks with our competitors, Izzi, Fidelis and Viva on several occasions. The strong outgoing tide always makes for complimentary tracks on the chartplotter but we did try to take advantage of the lifts and knocks and seemed to to quite well compared to our usual position.
Complimentary tracks with an outgoing tide
The run back to Steel Point was very square and the rhumb line kept us out in the tide. Perhaps we should have jybed away for a clean line of breeze away from Ichi Bahn, Viva and Izzi and less tide but we hung on on Starboard gybe until the point at which time Izzi crossed behind and went above. Up front in Rose Bay the fleet was tight reaching to the mark while we were still running square in the same direction. Izzi to windward got the strengthening header jumped ahead. Around Rose Bay we were reaching to Point Piper with the fleet not far in front and feeling pretty happy with our position. Agrovation had a nice new set of sail on board and had been well ahead but here she was retiring from the race after an unfortunate collision. Rainbow who had been late off the line was still well behind and we had Enigma and Viva covered. It was fortunate that we were so well up at this stage because the breeze began to fade so we were coming home in lighter breeze than the front markers. Viva was very notable punished by the dying breeze and Enigma and Rainbow not helped at all.
Across the line we were happy with the result expecting to see Mercedes do well as they sailed well in the fresh breeze off the start line. On handicap we tied for third with Larrikin with Mercedes first and Amante second so it was a great first race of Spring.