3rd day Lendy Cowes Week 2017

August 1, 2017

After having sailed very well in the first two days of this Cowes week, we knew it would take hard work to copy the two first places we scored until now.
Weather forecast was perfect, promising a sunny day with wind 15-19 knots. So no massive rain like yesterday!
The no.2 genua was very well repaired, but we decided to start with the no.1 genua.
Starting line again on the landsite of the Solent in front of the RYS. This time we had a very good start, but we did not really succeed to sail away from the pack like the first two days. Again we went inshore because of the tide, but frequent tacking with a genua 1 with a relatively heavy boat costs us more time than the lighter boats with the small high aspect jibs like the J-97 ‘s have.
We rounded the first mark in 3rd place. The course was very much like the one yesterday. Short tracks off the wind and then upwind again. The first down wind went well and we rounded first.
In the following beat upwind we lost one place to Hakuna Matata. But regained that in the following downwind track. A splendid inside sail change from spinnaker no. 2 to spinnaker no.1 really showed how professional this Corinthian crew of Winsome is. The no.1 made a big difference, together with the staysail named “Ruby”. The last upwind beat we had to make a lot of tacks between the shore and the inner side of Gunnard ledge. The quick and easy tacking other competitors were really gaining on us there. We tried to stay in shallow water as much as possible because of the strong tides against us. We took some risk there that resulted in grounding for a short time. Hakuna Matata past us there again, but we solved that again in the next down wind run to the finish line.
For the third day in a row we got “the gun” for finishing first and scoring line honours!!
On corrected time we missed 24 seconds on the first J-70, which resulted in a 2nd place for Winsome on corrected time.
3 days Cowes Week : 1-1-2 as results.
Let’s keep up the good work!

Regards,
Dirk-Jan