2015 AAM CW Day 5_Wednesday

August 13, 2015

After yesterday’s lay-day, today promised to be a good day for sailing with North-Easterly gradient of approximately 10 knots later increasing to 15 knots, mostly dry and some spells of sun.

We were due to start on the Bramble line heading to the East. We had a decent start, approximately 1/3 up from the pin end and close to Mogan, the current leader in our class. During the first beat we worked the port side of the course to stay out of the tide and led around the first mark (Hamble Yacht Services) in first place with Cor Blimey, 2XS and Blackjack close on our heels. This leg was followed by a fetch to a laid mark near Lee Point and we managed to slightly extend our lead.

During the race our lead extended and contracted like an accordion with the wind strength that went up and down. By keeping focused and shifting gear between the different wind strengths we kept the boat moving and held our lead.

Fortunately, towards the end of the race the breeze increased and was steadier at approximately 10 knots. After a long run we rounded South Bramble for a tight reach towards Prince’s Consort and a fetch to the finish. We managed to keep our spinnaker up during the reach and that way managed to pull away a bit from our opponents. We finished first on the water but had to allow 2XS and Blackjack II in front of us. After the race we found out that Mogan had scored an OCS and now have a result that they will badly want to discard as well.

The coming two days will be exciting and we will be giving it everything we got to win our class so watch this space.

All the best.

Joost Dantuma