Richmond Summer Series: Race 4: Great Result

Another lovely evening on the water, a good wind and tide and great crew-work gave us our best result yet in the Richmond Summer Series 2010 - the Wednesday night races on the Waitemata harbour.

Best Result

Tonight delivered our best result on the water, and although we sailed well with no mistakes, there is still room for improvements. We finished 7th on handicap in a fleet of 16 boats, and we were all feeling very good about our performance and in the knowledge that we can be competitive - albeit with the assistance of the handicapper ;-)

The Crew

John (Captain), Nicola, Ian, Blair and Tim.

It was a good number on board and the crew-work was great, with good communication and assistance where necessary to get the job done. Ian again showed his agility in mastering 'the pole' and now it is up to me to make his life easier by shortening it to a more manageable tool for the straight-downwind sailing.

Course 7

North Head, Orakei, North Head, Orakei, Resolution, home. It was a good course with the added bonus that beacuse it doubled back on itself, we were sailing more in the fleet, rather than being left behind the quicker boats. We rounded all marks well, with Kerkira pointing reasonably well, but still way lowerer than most. We made our marks - and that is the main thing. We saw others putting in extra tacks - probably because of the tide moving over the course rather than purely the wind direction, and we were on top of that.

The Start

What can I say... WELL DONE. It was our best start yet, and we were confidently in the mix at the start, with a few extra seconds lost in the jostling of bigger faster boats - but hey - that's racing. We were all very pleased with the start and I was particularly pleased with the calling from the foredeck and the crew responsiveness when we needed to power-on.

Progress

Down the harbour, in the fleet. While we had a bit of clear air we held on well - but the larger boats to windward slowly crept down and in overtaking us stole our wind, and we slowed down a bit. Still we were going well with a nice breeze, which seemed to be affected a bit by buildings and spaces from the city skyline. Kerkira powered up well in the small gusts.

The rounding of the marks was done well, but not by all, and we saw BlackStar having trouble with the rounding of North Head. That gave the crew a lift and we managed to stay in front for the rest of the race.

The Result

Our best result - 7th out of 16 finishers. Looking through the handicap results we were in the same half minute as the 2nd place-getter. So with some small improvements across the game, we know we can start to feature more often in the 'upper' level of the results.



The result at the Clubhouse - disappointing - but the burgers were good.

Cheers
JHS