Race 5 of the CYCA Winter Series
26 May 2013 | Sydney Harbor
jT - sunny with light winds
Crew (Doug, Luke, Andrew, Dan, Annabel, and Jeff)
Dan was on the boat early, and advised that Manuel and Ollie wouldn’t be showing up. Something about last seen kicking on at 1am. Slackers! It was a quiet morning setting up, Dan had some good looking blueberry muffins, and I almost took one offered but figured a bacon and egg sanger might be needed. The wind prediction was light and getting lighter during the day so some calories were in order! Six crew was the right amount, so all was good.
We got out to the race course and there was about 10 knots of breeze. We played the start line and bit and got our first tack figured out. First time this year I held us up towards the start boat, so we had a line of yachts on Starboard below us as we came up to the start. With a bit of pushing and shoving by the boats below, we surprisingly started right next to the start boat in clean air. With a bit of bobbing and weaving, we kept the course with the intention of staying under Clark Island. The first leg worked for us, with a nice lift taking us up towards the mark. By the first mark, we had Inkonkoni in our sights and had taken at least half of her one minute lead out of her. We had a good off the breeze run back to Shark Island and were slowly pulling the 46 foot Beneteau in. Heading down the harbor, towards Sow and Pigs, was a nice beam reach. The wind was slowly dying out and we slowly reeled Inkonkoni in. By the mark we had closed to within 10 seconds and pursued her up the course. Behind us the wind was even lighter and our competition hadn’t closed the gap on us as of yet.
For the next leg we kept pulling close to Inkonkoni until we were less than a boat length off her transom. Both of us would have to tack in order to clear Neilson’s Point, so I cut us away first hoping to beat her by just enough to force behind us on starboard. With several minutes of sailing, she came back at us on port tack, but was able to tack right under us! Still just barely a length between us, I waited until we cleared the point and then decided to duck under her. Inkonkoni stayed high, and with the boys (Luke and Doug) trimming like crazy, we were able to sail under her and clear the Shark Island mark well ahead of her. We repeated the earlier tactic and kept below Clark Island after crossing the first lap gate. This paid off by the time we hit Garden Island with a nice chunk taken out of Inkonkoni. The only downside was L’Attitude caught and passed us at that mark!
The next leg was tricky sailing, with the wind shifting and fading away. We poled out the heady and almost were pointed at Point Piper trying to chase a wind line. L’Attitude kept her line to the mark and was able to still beat us by a wide margin. We dropped the pole and angled back to the mark on a near beam reach. Just as we pasted the Shark Island mark, the wind just died. Down to 1.5 – 2.0 knots. We ghosted along for about 20 minutes and were barely able to keep on our course.
The two big fifty footers, In Cahoots and then Silver Minx slowly pulled us in. I would have swore they had a motor on if both boats weren’t in a ghosting conga line! We lost all steerage as In Cahoots past and nosed towards Neilson’s Point. The wind returned, well just enough to regain control, just before we would be in danger from hitting the rocks. Tacking, we slowly drifted on the tide back towards a triple wood pile. Clearing by barely two feet, we had to call starboard on another boat. They had enough speed to be able to drive behind us. Our friend’s, Inkonkoni had caught up and we also were able to force them to duck below us. Unfortunately for them, Sextant (our friend from last week) was right below them on starboard. Sextant called Inkonkoni on Starboard, but the wind was dead. There was almost a collision as Inkonkoni was barely able to move and tack. Sextant slide by her with inches to spare. With us just above Inkonkoni, we should have had to tack as well. But with them tussling, we kept our course and then just barely ducked Sextant. Inkonkoni applauded our ‘seamstress’ abilities by our threading the needle!
The next two hours slowly ticked by and with the sun dropping behind the skyline we still hadn’t reached Sow and Pigs. With time expired we turned on the motor and headed for home. The bar awaited us, and Kirsty came down to commiserate our lack of finishing. A slow day, all and all! The first lap and a half was very competitive, bummer it didn’t end up counting. Out of the ~100+ boats, only 4 in all finished… Till next week…