Wow.. What a cracker of a weekend..!!!
Who doesn't love sick easterlies with second rig in..!!!
Oh it wasn't that bad...
Here's the weekly report..
We arrived at the club at 11:00.. The sun was shining, there were boats all over the rigging lawn and The Glee Club were singing Lady Gaga through Suellens new rigging lawn speakers... Oh it was gonna be a great day..!! Only drama was... THERE WAS NO WIND..!!!!
Tristan unfortunately had to work so Wayne got the late call up... He was keen as mustard to get onboard and try a skinny boat.. Fair enough too :o) THEY"RE AWESOME..!!
Wayne and I were busy plugging in big rig when the Ghetto Shed and Squid rolled up.. Richard looked around nervously and wanted to go second rig... The forecast was 10-15kts.. Wayne and I were dubious.. As was Craig... Ben and Richard both seemed to have flash backs to the 15kt big rig day a few weeks ago... Dry your eyes princesses..!! Anyway we decided to do the righty and do the you go I go we all go a go go thing.. So we took out big and slapped in second rig... Big call... Richard said he'd buy the beers if we got out there and it wasn't second rig...
So we hit the water.. The wind was from the west and Wayne and I went out a little earlier than usual just to get used to the boat etc... Fun times.. We blasted out of the harbour.. Wayne loved the accelleration of the BMMKII hull and it didn't stop there.. We got out of the leads and threw the kite up to head down to green... The wind started bending south and soon we were heading straight back to the channel.. We gybed to miss an etchell and were heading straight back where we were coming from.. The wind had swung to the East so we had effectivly done a 180... Awesome... We dropped the kite and worked our way up to the Northern course... There was a patch between the leads and the start boat where West meets East... We sat there patiently for... TOO LONG..!!!
We then proceeded to the start... The wind was swinging 360 degrees... It was crazy... I wasn't sure if they would ever get a race in... We were out there for 2hrs before they finally got a race started... The wind had settled in the South and it was actually quite a comfy second rig... Nice work Richard...
The Squid smashed the start... They hit the pin end and just smoked the fleet. It was awesome to see.. Wayne and I didn't have a terrible start but it wasn't great... We worked our way up the course but duffed a tack and lay line which Richard and John on board the Gettho Shed through.. Well kind of... There was a Port and Starboard incident where Ghetto miraculously got a random lift right when our tiller extensions crossed their bow........ I didn't see it myself but anyway... Meanwhile the Squidgee lads had just killed us all and were miles in front... They were right on the tail of the 49er... The barging mark was pretty square so Craig decided to sneak the tack line out.. They were bracing for the fastest set of all time.. unfortunately upon reaching the barging mark the kite didn't go up... It was stuck between the kite pole wires... OH NO..!!! Before anyone could blink, the kite was in the water collecting prawns and both Ghetto and PB had blasted past them.. Unrucky boys..!! We get halfway down the run and Ghetto dropped their kite... Wayne and I were in shock.. Surely these clowns weren't going to do it again... Yep.. Ghetto rounded the wrong bottom mark... PB continued down to the proper bottom mark and tried to catch the speedy cheatahs.. (Pun intended) There were small gains and losses throughout the second lap and we finished roughly the same distance from Ghetto.. Good quality racing.. I love that there is only seconds splitting the boats... One slow tack and or a missed layline costs you a race. Keeps you on ya toes that's for sure..!! The Squid boys brought it up the rear.. They had a small tear in their kite from the incident but finished in 3rd ahead of the millions of 505's..
The second race start was a bit better for PB.. Ghetto and Squid tacked off early and PB covered... The wind had eased a little, but we were still able to just pull two strings...
Ghetto found thge switch for the after burners and were able to point a bit higher than us... They crossed us and rounded the top mark.. It was still close.. Wayne and I rounded with a bunch of 505's.. Did I mention there were 8 of them..!! We decided that we wouldn't catch Ghetto by following them, so we did the sneaky Brendan gybe at the top mark and prayed for a line down the middle to drag us down... We didn't get it but we made up a little ground anyway due to Ghetto missing the lay line and dropping early... The wind eased some more and they worked their way up to the top mark.. Wayne and I threw everything at them but we couldn't peg them back.. We rounded the top mark in the same order.. The squid boys caught up a bit too but the hole in their kite got a bit bigger every time they threw it up, and by the last lap they had pretty much no kite left.. Just some luff tape skill dragging them to the finish boat..
Well done to all crew. It was a magic day out there..!! Well worth the horrible 2hr wait before the first race...
Again it's great to see the standard lifting each week... I love having such close racing..!!
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