WED NITE FUN RACE
Wednesday night racing has started for the 2008-2009 season.

08/10/2008
Crew aboard: Ian, Micheal, Siger, Sandy, Gavin, Toni and Nick.

Our first race was a lovely sail. The wind was SE 10 - 14 knts at the start, but soon dropped to around 2 - 5 knts and became incredibly shifty, with shifts of upto 40 - 50 degrees on the first beat to Paarden Island mark. At the mark the wind freshened slightly from the South East. We rounded hot on the heals of the Stretched Farr Perriwinkel, The Oyster 39 Touch & Go and the Fast 42 Maestro. The reach saw us hanging in with the bigger boats quite nicely. Which saw us all at the Milneton mark at the same time. Perriwinkel, Touch & Go on the inside of us and Maestro on our outside quarter. On the fetch to No. 2, Perriwinkel lead the pack, followed by Hocus Pocus as we had overhauled Touch & Go, with Maestro still behind us. The wind was sitting at 15 knts. We held our position until a little over halfway up the fetch, when Maestro eventually passed us to weather, and kindly offered us a tow, which we gladly took advantage of, for as long as we could.
Approaching No.2 mark, Perriwinkel was squeezed out by Maestro at the mark. Which saw her luff up and miss the mark and head back at us. She then tried tacking back, which then stalled them square across our bow just before the mark. We took avoiding action by ducking their transom and set about rounding the mark. Sandy at this point got over eager pulling in the main entering the rounding and almost saw us parked on the mark, as the boat tried to power up the beat early. Luckily I managed to free the mainsheet,and we eased over the edge of the mark without touching it. This left us dead in the water for a few seconds and allowed Touch & Go to capitalise on the situation, as she rounded in side us and passed us. Perriwinkel was still behind us as we started the beat to the finish. The final beat saw us hanging in there with Touch & Go . There were a few shifts in the breeze on the final beat, which saw the boats split coarses. We ended up finishing just behind Periwinkel and Touch & Go.
Overall, a most pleasant sail, enjoyed by all aboard.
We ended up 3rd in Class 1 on handicap. Not bad considering we had not officially entered the race!