PORTUGAL DAY RACE 6 June 2009
Since the Easter regatta in SimonsTown HP has only been out once or twice socially so it was nice to get her out on the water again. The race was a pursuit race with 46 entries. A lumpy sea was running. In the starting area the winds were around 18 which was great but we felt that it would progressively drop off as we sailed further to the weather mark area which was Barker Rock. In any event, we got off the line on time at a good pace. The winds did hold off but we were able to hold our own until just past the Pavilion area where it dropped further and with our sail configuration we started to suffer especially with the sea state the way it was. We did a hitch offshore to connect with the new breeze but we had lost out a lot prior to this with the larger boats able to pull through. Good rounding of Barker and a good Kite sail back to the finish with us trying to defend our finish piosition. The boat performed well off wind in the swells. We finished up 12th which is fair considering the conditions were less then optimal for our boat. Aboard were: Siger, Ian, Michael, Deon, Sarel, Leroy, Tony C, Dale.