Harvest Regatta '08
The EYC, Harvest Regatta was entirely a local fleet affair this year. Although the competition was familiar, the weekend provided plenty of good racing. Rounding the final leeward mark of one race in fourth we managed a second place finish by staying in more breeze than a couple boats in front of us. The finishes all weekend were pretty close.
Although we didn't have as much wind as last year, 10 to 18+ was plenty... and too much for some! We usually like these conditions but our old Genoa required more repair tape after day one. The carnage was mostly on Sunday. One poor Lido lost their mast before the start of the first race. Before the day was over, the remaining Lidos agreed to retire. In the Santana 20 fleet, several boats changed to blades for the last race. We're typically among the last boats to make such a sail change but I agreed with the call once I saw that some of the repair tape was AWOL. The jib is almost brand new.
The wind continued to build and the jib didn't seem to hurt us on the first beat. Soon into the run we were doing 10 plus on the speedo and then within seconds the spin sheet on the guy side pulled through the grommet as the knot failed. (Gordon likes stopper knots rather than a bowline.) We managed to get the kite (hardly an appropriate term for it at this point) down and everything else cleaned up in time to round the leeward mark. On the next beat I tried to unravel the twisted (ready to be rung out kind of twisted) spinnaker. What a mess!
It wasn't sorted out by the time we rounded the windward mark again. We quickly stuck the pole on the jib sheet and winged it out to try and keep up. As I worked on running the tape of the spinnaker, we noticed another 20 completely over on its side. Wow! An unusual site. It looked like someone was trying to walk the keel like a dingy. As quickly as she came up, she was running down wind and leaving a crew member behind. Apparently, walking the plank turned into a MOB exercise (with a good ending). We could see that other boats were also having trouble with the 20+ gusts. The chute was finally ready to go but I looked up and we were quickly approaching the mark. No sense in hoisting at that point. We were in fourth place and more importantly under control.
Loose Nuts avoided disaster on one run when they noticed their forestay pin missing. A replacement allowed then to and won the regatta. "Q", sailing with four all summer, sailed in control, flat and fast, took second. Both boats have been sailing very well all summer. Finishing in third was the 'infamous “H20 Boa”' (according to the report on the class website)... "Infamous"? Must be a reference to the Australian hairdresser's nightmare comment on SA.
Although we didn't have as much wind as last year, 10 to 18+ was plenty... and too much for some! We usually like these conditions but our old Genoa required more repair tape after day one. The carnage was mostly on Sunday. One poor Lido lost their mast before the start of the first race. Before the day was over, the remaining Lidos agreed to retire. In the Santana 20 fleet, several boats changed to blades for the last race. We're typically among the last boats to make such a sail change but I agreed with the call once I saw that some of the repair tape was AWOL. The jib is almost brand new.
The wind continued to build and the jib didn't seem to hurt us on the first beat. Soon into the run we were doing 10 plus on the speedo and then within seconds the spin sheet on the guy side pulled through the grommet as the knot failed. (Gordon likes stopper knots rather than a bowline.) We managed to get the kite (hardly an appropriate term for it at this point) down and everything else cleaned up in time to round the leeward mark. On the next beat I tried to unravel the twisted (ready to be rung out kind of twisted) spinnaker. What a mess!
It wasn't sorted out by the time we rounded the windward mark again. We quickly stuck the pole on the jib sheet and winged it out to try and keep up. As I worked on running the tape of the spinnaker, we noticed another 20 completely over on its side. Wow! An unusual site. It looked like someone was trying to walk the keel like a dingy. As quickly as she came up, she was running down wind and leaving a crew member behind. Apparently, walking the plank turned into a MOB exercise (with a good ending). We could see that other boats were also having trouble with the 20+ gusts. The chute was finally ready to go but I looked up and we were quickly approaching the mark. No sense in hoisting at that point. We were in fourth place and more importantly under control.
Loose Nuts avoided disaster on one run when they noticed their forestay pin missing. A replacement allowed then to and won the regatta. "Q", sailing with four all summer, sailed in control, flat and fast, took second. Both boats have been sailing very well all summer. Finishing in third was the 'infamous “H20 Boa”' (according to the report on the class website)... "Infamous"? Must be a reference to the Australian hairdresser's nightmare comment on SA.
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