If you thought yesterday was windy at the Skandia Sail for Gold regatta, you should have been out today! Racing was curtailed for most classes, with the match racers being sent home after some boats suffered minor damage and gusts of 30 knots battered the race course.
Check out the video and interview with Lucy below!
The day started with three rounds of the Repechage before we were sent out for the Gold Group. A course re-shuffle saw the match race fleet move inside the harbour to allow the 49ers to take the most sheltered water in Newton’s Cove. Conditions inside are actually worse than in the shelter of the North wall, making the down wind legs particularly challenging with the ever-present danger of a nose dive!
In our first race, a confident start over Nicky Souter (AUS) saw us win the favoured starboard end of the line and defend the starboard side up the first beat. A slight error at the first windward mark saw us pick up a penalty as we were judged to have tacked too close, but we rounded ahead. An exciting run with speeds regularly hitting 10 knots saw us extend, and we had a good second beat. At the second windward mark we had enough lead to round, sail outside two boat lengths and then tack, offloading our penalty and coming back at the mark in an attacking position on starboard as Souter rounded on port. The final run was neck and neck all the way, with a photo finish at the line. After some deliberation on board the committee boat the blue flag was flown, signalling the win was awarded to Souter.
The second race of the day for us was against Le Berre (FRA) in which we dominated the pre-start, inflicting two penalties on our opponents. This means that they had to take one penalty turn immediately after starting, leaving us to sail away and extend our lead to a comfortable win of over 150m. The conditions continued to deteriorate throughout the race with the average wind speed moving into the high 20s, and a nasty chop building. Boat speeds down wind were hitting 12 knots with some interesting submarine-ing moments! Exhilarating racing but hard work physically and a good test of the boat handling and concentration!
Some of the other boats suffered minor damage and with the wind increasing racing was then postponed for the day.
Tomorrow sees a slightly revised schedule with the repechage again at an earlier first start of 0930, then we’ll be out mid-morning for the completion of the gold fleet. The forecast is for a more manageable 15 knots so hopefully they can catch up on the schedule.
Follow the results and twitter feed at http://www.matchracegirls.com/sail-for-gold/2011/
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