Guest Author: Gadget
The course was set between marker #6 and a drop marker towards the Hamilton side. A fairly short course. The wind was better at the pin end so we decided to start by running along the line, then heading up at the start, at the pin end. We had good, clean air. The wind had veered considerably, and for a while, we were making the mark on our starting tack. The leeway slowly pushed us off and we had to put in a quick tack to make the mark. The boats who had started at the boat-end were able to make the mark, so we had some catching up to do.
The hoist was clean and away we went. We had gained a spot by the time we started our dowse, but the short course caught us out and we were still cleaning up the foredeck during rounding. We tacked a bit too early, with lines in the way, and by the time we got the mess sorted out, we had some catching up to do.
Somehow the second hoist was clean, and although Battlewagon had hoisted their kite upside down, we weren’t able to gain quite enough on them before the finish line.
We kept flying after the finish, overtook the soon to be soused sailors, and gave them the bow of shame, narry a moon to be seen. Here’s a glimpse from on-board Battlewagon