Race Training (Drag-racing) Day - 30 Oct 05

Detailed Results:

ET = Elapsed Time (mins)

CT = Corrected Time (mins)

From our eye-in-the-sky reporter, viewed from his lofty apartment overlooking the bay:

Such was the fascination of being able to view the whole scene effectively with a birds-eye view, that I had to get my binoculars and settle in for what became one of the most interesting and even exciting yacht races I have seen. To be able to watch the tactics and dramas unfold while not on a boat was quite a revelation and to be able to see the birds-eye-view was particularly interesting and informative.

The initial starts were dominated by Wings and Wizard, as was expected, with the other boats either being too polite or too late on the gun to get up to the line to challenge. This certainly improved throughout the day markedly which bodes well for the upcoming races and validated the whole 'drag-racing' concept.

The real exciting bit was watching some of the slower boats pick up (by design and local knowledge of course!) the bias of the course which actually favoured a pin end or even port-tack start then tacking to move out to the left hand side of the course, toward the explosives storage depot. The tide and breeze progressively favoured this tactic which perhaps Wings and Wizard were initially too focused on each other to worry about. Authority, Lorien and Sabi Star certainly found it out to their benefit and later, with Thea and Shockwave following along, had some fantastic battles swapping tacks and covering each other all the way to the top mark, with one race resulting in four boats all rounding the mark within feet of each other.

Meanwhile Wings and Wizard were having match races of the own - each of which was a ding-down battle of who could get the windward slot off the start and go through the smoothest tacks. Wings had her day today with a superb display of up-wind sailing; on many occasions standing up straighter, pointing higher and being able to dictate the tacks - a position that Wizard does not often find herself in, which may be the reason she found herself a bit rusty.

Authority had a great day doing battle with Sabi Star and Thea, in the end being able to use her slightly superior speed, courtesy of her huge genoa, to sail low and fight her way out from under her competition leaving Sabi Star and Thea to have another match race of their own. Or maybe not quite on their own, with the tiny Shockwave managing to get in their way on several occasions through some good tactics and surprising speed on flat water.

Lorien also had some lovely moves coming in from long tacks to the favoured part of the course to catch up and surprise the bigger boats. Rosemary had a tougher day of it, tending to take more long-shot tactics on the right-hand side of the course which kept her underneath the others who took the port side, nevertheless Paulo had a couple of moments where he was able to burgle a place at the mark in the close finishes.

The final triangle race was great to watch with Wings, Wizard and Thea all doing the decent thing and flying their brightest kites. Wings again had a perfect run and stretched out to almost a full leg lead by the finish with the breeze dying a little on Wizard down the back straight and then slowing the tail-enders considerably. Authority came in a very respectable third using her big genoa to very good effect.

Video camera battery failure precluded a record of the event, which could have been used as a training video. Maybe next time we can set up a tripod and capture the whole thing? The only problem - I'll be out on the water next time for sure!

KW