Skippers are getting keen, Grant and Greg were at the Club when I arrived at 8.15 a m.
Skippers meeting at 11.30 change of course to Transit as starter’s boat out of action with water in the port motor injector.
Windy point was short of a crew and was able to have a new crew member as well as Kelly sail with him enabling the boat compete in the race.
Last race 8 starters, this race 13 starters, we have a possible 17 if all the eligible yachts lined up.
1.00 p.m, great weather, wind N to NE around start up to 6kts, Start 1.30 p.m fleet away, reach to Motor Boat Club turned to work to the CC bridge then reach to police bouy, work up the channel. Red Ned in front, think VCD behind, Brave H going well rest of fleet pretty bunched up to far away to be sure of who was who, with the tide running out most yachts favoured eastern side of course, with the long work out, things improved for some and not so for others at the outer tower mark the bigger yachts or the ones with bigger rigs or faster classes were well ahead of the Endeavors except for Kokomo as usual it was well up ahead of the rest of the fleet.
On rounding the top mark and this time all yachts actually new it was the correct mark the fleet decided to split with some heading for above OTP and some for ITP As I very seldom can look around as Peter yells at me “look where you are going” there was not a big gap in Jeeves, Stella, Tic Tac and Wasabi. It was amazing to see the distance Kokomo had put from the rest of us he can certainly go well under kite, Greg had a few problems but set his kite eventually and finally pulled away from Warren Browne who for once had lots of crew.
As we in Wundurra decided not to fight the tide we elected to stay on the starboard side of the channel we stayed close to the marks and cleared the ITP mark by a metre with our boom when we were about 30 metre past the floating starboard mark with a fare turn of speed (still in the channel by the marks) we hit the bottom twice in about the next 10 to 20 metres and really lurched forward as when we finished the race and went below we found the stored gear was now all over the cabin.
At the rounding of outer starboard mark to approach CCB we were up behind Warren Browne and he chickened and dropped his kite, great news for us, just as we passed under the CCB bridge Tic Tac who had a great burst of speed with his blue kite full and it looked as if he would pass Warren and us, but for some reason elected to pass on the windward side of Warren who pushed him up, giving us a great advantage and we finished second Endeavor.
Steve Mc Lennan did the race results and what a close event it turned out as you can see.
Brian C