Crew (Doug +1[Amber], Chris, Manuel, Andrew, Luke +3[of Yvette, Darshan, and Priya] Ilse, Dan, Annabel, and Jeff)

Today started at the club as a cracker of a winter morning. Bright sunshine, gentle breeze, and a darn good egg and bacon roll from CYCA. We got the boat prepped with expectations of 12 knots of breeze from the West. The crew got the #1 out and everything set with practiced ease. Luke had a few guests from the USA, so it was fun welcoming them back onto US soil, AKA Nemesis! We pulled out of the slip and headed out to the race. Dan helmed us out to put up the sails, fresh back from Antigua race week with Shane. Some great stories of the week and then cruising the islands. With the sails up we heading toward the start and checked the course, Course A again for the fifth week.

We challenged the start line low down at the pin end. With a decent start we had to weave through traffic on port tack, but as the tide was low and flooding in it helped getting out into the channel for our first upwind slog. The wind proved to be fluky and variable as we tacked our way to the first mark. With 12 onboard we had a full compliment, and lots of help to keep weight up or down based on the wind. The new and newer crew members did an excellent job in the tacks! With a bit of traffic at the mark, we seemed to be holding off our competition. Rounding the mark we settled in and got the heady poled out, only three tries to keep the downhaul attached! Doug got it sorted and we chased after Inkonkoni and Astral. This would be a common theme for the day!

With the next mark down, we beam reached up the harbor towards Manly, Sow and Pigs being our next mark. It was a very fast angle and we found ourselves pacing and even passing smaller boats flying spinnakers. We managed to take both yachts on this leg, as Astral and Inkonkoni kept a bit West of the lay line. With a quick lap up and back down the harbor, we pulled for the last mark of the first lap, still managing to hold Astral off. Inkonkoni slid in front of us right at the mark, with Andrew telling us he knew the skipper from his dinghy days and he was a champion sailor. Hmmm, I think I liked racing him better when I didn't know that! No worries, Doug chimed in that I was blooded in Mexico by two hurricanes, so it's all good! We had a laugh as we traded tacks with Astral as we ploughed upwind towards the gate and first lap complete.

The second lap was a close repeat of the first, but we lost ground to L'Attitude and Inkonkoni. As we approached Sow and Pigs we had a fleet of massive boats in our division all gunning for us. InCahoots, Silver Minx and Sextant were in a line chasing us down. It seemed like Silver Minx was sitting on and playing with Sextant as she struggled to pass. Love when faster boats in our division tussle, as it gains us much needed seconds to fight our very aggressive handicap. We rounded Sow and Pigs and tried our best to hold them off as we headed back towards Shark Island. Fluky wind brought us right into Nelson's Point and we were force to tack away from it, calling for water (room to avoid the rock obstruction) and lucky the two boats that had us pinned quickly tacked to let us out. Doing this allowed Sextant to sail under us, with Silver Minx and InCahoots also closing in. We barely managed to keep in front of Sextant, and she finally overtook us just before the last turning mark before the finish, LM4.

With a small boat right above us, we were held from tacking after the mark. We were hard on the wind and with only a boat length in front of us we also were able to hold Sextant from tacking. I could see the skipper keep looking back and knew he was itching to tack. Doug kept fighting the fluky breeze and we gained a small bit on Sextant to within 1/2 a boat length. With both of us on starboard tack, and us being the windward boat, we kept clear of Sextant, but were too close for her to tack and still give us room to avoid. She knew this, but choose to ignore the rules. Her skipper turned and hollered "Tacking!" and started to turn into us with less than 6 meters between us and both of us doing 6+ knots! "Starboard" and "Hold your course" were screamed at Sextant as Doug slammed Nemesis into the wind to avoid a collision. Sextant return to her course with spare meters before hitting us, so a few choice words were exchanged, including us calling "Protest". I reached into the port locker and pulled out our red protest flag and hoisted it on the backstay.

Our momentum drained and course distracted we tacked away from Sextant and struggled for the finish gate. We tacked for the finish line and waiting for us was the starboard train called InCahoots and Silver Minx. Just passing the start boat, on starboard tack, I called for a snap tack to try and clear the finish line. The speed just wasn't there and with Sextant finishing below us, we were force to tack out of the way of InCahoots and Silver Minx on starboard. Gutted, we watched them steam through the finish line just seconds in front of us. We tacked back to starboard and finished the race. Exhausted. What an ending to a day of sailing! Four boats in our division finished within 30 seconds of each other.

Back at the club, we discussed the events and decided to press our protest against Sextant. We'll reconvene on Thursday at the club and see how the protest hearing goes. It is an absolutely tough division we are in. Mostly new and huge boats, with 46, 48, 50 footers being the majority. This, along with the very aggressive handicapping forces us to punch above our weight in every race. Single mistakes or slow tacks can and will cost us those seconds that lose us races. More to come on Thursday night. Winning the protest against Sextant will only change her score, it won't claw back the four seconds we needed to finish our tack and clear InCahoots and Silver Minx at the finish line. No, Sextant and her foolish, greedy skipper took that time away not to be returned. Sad when a faster boat has to resort to cheating to win. That, my friends is yacht racing!