Cowes week day 4: A day to forget….

August 15, 2012

On the fourth day of Cowes week we had a Committee Boat start. We made our way over to the start line still digesting the excellent BBQ we were invited for last night at Adam Gosling and his Yes! crew, our respected opponent in IRC Class 5. Yes! shared with us their great tradition of electing a ‘dick du jour’ for the crew member who had a big screw up during the race. Harry seemed to like this tradition and the mandatory pink shirt that came with the elected ‘Dick du Jour’. Yesterday it was ‘Stig’ who arrived 2 days too late for the Cowes week.

After arriving and seeing the start line being put in for the fourth time there was a postponement 5 minutes before the start. When the start line was actually put in right, and our class did start, we didn’t do so well and were in the bottom half of our Class 5 fleet.

Worse came to worse when we rounded the upwind mark and had a classic starboard port mess up. We completely oversaw Jet who protested us. For uw there was nothing else to do but accepting the 1% penalty.

The race was still a long way to go and in light conditions. We actually did do well, caught up with the rest of the fleet and kept our focus. Finally we finished 8^th, after our penalty we scored 10^th. It was a beautiful sunny day to be out sailing, we had a few great kite runs, great boat handling, it just wasn’t our day for a good result. Hopefully we can discard this race from our results at the end of the week. Better luck tomorrow, heavy conditions are predicted. They might be beneficial for Winsome.

Cheers,

Hidde