CROCS Cont...

Race:3

With the Sunday racing being cancelled due to very windy conditions.. 50 knots plus.. we had only the Wednesday for racing leaving no chance of a discard.. The morning race was started in a light SW.. We got a good start, being a slower boat the larger yachts quickly rolled us leaving us in their "dirties", it took a while to get upto full speed again.. After this we sailed but we struggled in the lulls.. In the end we ended 11th in this race making it one of our worst races of the year.. Between races we went and anchored in Grainger Bay.

Race 4:

The breeze had freshened at about 14knots or so.. We got a good start, sailed well and managed to hold the kite on a tight reach when some of the other yachts could not... In the end we won this race quite convincingly..

Overall we can 5th. It was nice to have the full racing crew aboard.. Also nice having the full 9 aboard..

CROCS REGATTA -December 2009

CREW: Dale, Ian, Dennis, Sieger, Michael, Sarel, Deon, Riaan, Neville.
Unfortunately we did not have time to train for this event, so we approached it with the intention of having some good sailing and lots of fun, getting ourselves back into the swing of bouy racing as we do not do much of it on HP..

RACE 1:
Winds were around 20knots at the start. We got an excellent start, however as we were grinding on we sheared bolts on our genoa track and had therefore were unable to sheet in for the full startboard beat which meaned that we lost some height.. We managed to make a plan by using our outer track thereafter.. We were very rusty on the spinnaker hoist which lost us some time but we managed a good gybe in freshening breeze. We made some errors at the drop which cost us some more time. Our beats were good, but we lost out again with a "way too early drop on the next leg.. The winds peaked at about 30 knots.. boat handled well. Noticed a the guy cleats were not refitted after the respray so this was held by hand.. in the end we came 3rd in this race.. Not bad considering we were a bit rusty..

RACE 2:
After having spent around an hour anchored in Granger Bay in windless conditions, we went out to race again.. it was blowing just short of 30 knots.. We managed an excellent start but almost immediately we found ourselves over powered, this kept stalling us.. We debated and decided to put in a reef, as soon as we completed this we noted a huge tear in the main just above the reef point, so we decided to put another reef in. While we were busy with this the main tore again, leaving us no alternative but to drop the sail... We decided to continue racing, not bad since we were only a few hundred metres off the start line... We lost lots of time on the beat due to us struggling with the main.. on the downwind we took it easy.. the winds were gusting 40knots... lots of boats did granny tacks at the leeward so we made up a bit there.. On the beat we managed to sail through a faster boats lee due to them being over powered.. they passed us again on the downwind but we got through them while they grannied.. We then pulled away from them on the final leg. Most of the fleet retired due to breakages or the strong conditions.. So although we did not do well, we still maintained some points.. we came 7th in the race.

WED 9th December 2009 -FUN RACE

FLAG OFFICERS RACE - 5 December 2009
We were contacted by the Honarary treasurer to take part int he Flag Officers Race as a member of his team.. We met early to use the time to prep the boat for Crocs Raggata. We removed any unneccessary items aboard and prepared our racing inventory.. We completed some of the maintainance items aboard at the same time. Afterwhich we went out sailing. A SW was blowing, around 9-12knots.. Good start, good first leg. Unfortunately we had to dip a moving ship which allowed those behind us to catch up a bit. 3rd around the weather mark. Good Kite hoist. We sailed this leg well with one Gybe which was well executed. AL sails a lot faster then us on the downwind and got through us. On the beat we ended up tacking early which cost us two places.. We used the Code Zero on the last leg. We came 3rd on corrected time and our team came third. On board were: Dennis, Michael, Sarel, Sieger, Riaan and Dale. Boat performed well with no problems.. Deon was down before racing to help with the alteration to the traveller...