Crew: (Chris, Dan, Sam - Dan's sister, Luke, Yvette, Ollie, Guillermo, Jeff ) - (last minute weather regrets from Doug and Kirsty when they found out it would be light and raining!)

Race 4 was fairly light winds, off at 35 minutes after the rest of the fleet, and on course “B” that would take us in the opposite direction to what we normally do… We had some new people on board, Dan’s sister Sam was visiting from New Zealand, and Luke brought Yvette, his girlfriend.

Everyone settled in to a light air start, and with issues seeing the timer on the start boat we were about a minute off the start. The rain came and went and we started with water cascading down the main sail! Ahhh, Winter sailing in Sydney! Chris was on the main, with Guille, Luke and Dan trimming the big #1 jib. Soon we passed the buoy at Shark Island and started our downwind run. The vang hydraulic was acting up and the main looked like hell without being pulled down as we let out the main. Putting the boom brake on helped to some degree, but will be re-bleeding the hydraulics before the next race!

The first lap found us gaining on most of our division with most of them just in front at the last mark near Garden Island. It was more than frustrating to not be able to close the gap with them during the next few legs.

Around Shark Island again, the wind had shifted just enough to need the headie poled out, so Luke took the helm while I went forward with Dan and Ollie to get everything set. The pole went out with only a few dramas, but the quick release on the beak is too hair trigger and forced us to reset the jib sheet once…

Finally all was out and down the harbor we fly on Starboard. Funny how a few port tacking boats that are coming at us down the harbor try to press for rights that don’t have! With a few hollers of “Starboard” we move down for the second turn at the Sow N’ Pigs reef. Just before the turn Luke takes the wheel as I move forward to drop the pole. It goes down fairly smoothly, but pole work is definitely on the list of training we need to do with the newer crew members…

We round the mark and not liking the feeling of the boat as I look back… the main hasn’t tacked! With the pole down and the foredeck free to tack, I return to the wheel and take her head to wind so we can safely release the boom brake. This kills our forward progress and after we get moving we are heading opposite of the next mark. I figure we burned about five minutes on this mistake, but with the vang out of commission we’ve had to be creative.

We finish the race without seeing any of our competitors, only beating two of them (our friend Circe being one of them). Back at the club we look at the results, and found ourselves in 5th. We were eight minutes behind the first place boat “L’eau Co.” from elapsed time around the course, but with the handicap and offset staggered start we lagged by 11 minutes. If we took off the approximately five minutes we lost at the top mark we would might have moved up 1 or 2 places. Wet and light winds, without a vang were not our friend today! We had a few rums in the bar with spirits and core temperatures quickly rising.