After the Foul weather over the last 2 weekends it was great to get back on the water. Well I nearly didn't. I was off playing with OP only to find out the boat have left without me, thankfully they realised and came back for me. I managed a flying leap from the dock back on board. Could have been a wet start to the day. They did leave 60 minutes before the start thats how eager everyone was to get back on the water. Or was it because they wanted to have a look at the US carrier sitting off fremantle. Our youngest crew, Junior Babel was left behind when he decided to sleep in that little bit more and was looking quite dejected when we returned after the race.
It looked like a NE course with the weather forecast NE and the wind blowing a light NE. But alas not to be. Hewy decided to throw a curly just before the start and we had 7 knots from the SW come in against all odds. Oh dear course 6, the shallow one only 0.75m of tide. This could get interesting at E mark.
A shocking start with us not quite together after a 3 week lay up. Wedged in behind 3 boats much smaller than us and forced to hold the handbrake on until the traffic cleared costing us dearly in time. Bit of a soldiers course as we really had no chioce of where to go due to depth dictating where to go. This allowed a number of well sailed smaller boats to go where the wind looked best. Syrenka, OP and a foundo 36 (yep well sailed guys) to beat us round the first mark. Popped the kite and thats about the last we saw of most. OP stilll in front and some really great match racing with them around the course until the depth alarm sounded "loudly". E mark is always interesting and with 0.75 m tide by me made the depth at the shalloweset point around 3.25 m (we draw 3.6m). Hold on boys 3.9, 3.8 , 3.7 , 3.6 .....OP stopped just in front of us. We aimed between them and the mark and I could fel the sand ripples touching the keel as we sailed past OP and off to deeper water. OP managed to hook some sort of occy pot or similar and ended up behind Syrenka again. The race for us was not a challenge after that and we cruised around to finish with line honours. Had a great shy kite run to the finish managing 50 AWA in 10 knots of breeze, good numbers for the polar updates.
We finished with 3rd and fastest on IRC, 2 minutes behind the "Terns" in first. The start killed us. Well done boys on the Tern, it would have been a big night for them last night.
Oh and the results from Race 1 were announced we did finish first on IRC.
Till next week. Naviguesser signing out.
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