So sundays League race for the 3rd heat of the Aus Titles was a much more pleasant day than the stinking hot westerly of satday, and the team headed out for an early start to the race track... bad move, after getting to the start area ahead of time for a change we floated around as we waited and waited and waited some more... the starters favourite flag was in action again... postpone start, this time as the whole fleet waited for the spectator ferry to arrive, then another postpone with about one minute to start gun... by this time we had been on the water for over an hour, ye at least much better than our 2 previous weeks of getting to the start line with about one min to go.
The poor fading southerly was not looking very pretty by now and as we headed around the race track in lite and shite conditions... all we could do was watch as the massive square tops sailed away in to the distance... we managed to stay with some boats all the way around but lost a position by one second on the finish line to record a rather forgetable 20th place, at least the Club Marine guys managed to fall over a couple of times to let us thru, but as we floated our way back to the SFS me and the boys wondered if we should take the big leap and go the square top option... really is no fun wathching other boats just cruise away thru the harbour chop... at least my young crews efforts with kite sets, gybes and drops are pretty sweet cause thats the only time we seem to gain any ground... so we need some more grunt, lets see what we can do about this issue by the time the JJ comes around
Then on to Australia Day and some minor tweaks to the rig after sundays low saw us again with a nice S/E breeze with a little more pressure... and as we threaded our way out of SFS bay past many happy Oz day party boats and ferries and into the Harbour washing machine we managed to tear the jib clew board away from the sail cloth... great, on the water for all of 10 mins and our day was over. So Bendo became human jib cleat and saved us from flogging the sail to death by riding the foredeck back home to the Squaddy... ah well could have been worse, at least it was an easy downwind cruise home with a bit of Oz Day sightseeing on the way... so no result and no chance to do some much needed rig tune up against the fleet... so what do we do... go square top or push on with our "old fashioned" pin head main... Hmmmmm
But nice to see Tuesdays Daily Telegraph sport section with a great story about how all the League guys had a torid day avoiding all the Australia Day action on the water... and as they say "any publicity is good publicity"... the Rag guys had a half page pic of the skiff in all its glory... but unfortunately in the tide and centre board dancing... would have loved to post the pic but maybe the Telegragh wouldnt be too happy
So maybe we got lucky with our early gear damage and missed a lot of the carnage... but a DNS is not a good look either
Ah well theres allways next week.... and after looking at the forecast below... 6 continuous days of classic Sydney N/E seabreezes we are in for a perfect weekend of skiff racing again...if only the JJ was this week
And with some No.2 rig kite and jib recuts from Neil at Barra this week our teams small rig will be a little nicer and hopefully faster... looks like some fun days ahead, and hopefully some new pics
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