Sailing reports
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Lasers
Preseason week 1:
8 hearty (desperate?) souls braved a frigid 10-18 knot southerly on 2 August for the opening of the pre season. About 6 sprint races were held, with Richard Bott showing no adverse impacts from last season's layoff. As for the rest.........the less said the better.
Weather is looking better for next week. Briefing at noon, first start at 1pm.
Big boats.....
Race report 3rd August 2014.
Three boats fronted on a sunny day with a cool, gusty and shifty but very manageable southerly. Time and Tide led from Umbakumba and Corinna at the start. Umbakumba and Corinna ran low to avoid the lee of Point Piper but were caught out by a shift and had to tack for the mark, allowing Time and Tide a handy lead.
On the run to Taylors Bay Umbakumba hoisted a twisted kite, and Corinna closed up, but when they finally set the kite they took off to reach the mark 30 seconds in the lead. Corinna gained an overlap at the mark to overtake Time and Tide and that remained the order at Sow and Pigs.
It looked like an easy fetch to Shark Island so Umbakumba ran a bit wide into the harbour. Corinna held height and this paid off when the wind shifted to make it a work. Time and Tide slipped into Corinna’s lee and slowly lost ground, so Corinna held about 1 ½ minutes over Umbakumba at the Shark mark.
Then stupidity and greed took over. Rather than cruising to an easy win, Corinna tried to set a spinnaker. It was too shy and Umbakumba had closed most of the gap when it became clear that Corinna could not lay the finish. Instead of letting the spinnaker flap and two-sailing to the finish, the idiots on Corinna did a very slow, awkward drop and Umbakumba cruised by to win by about 15 seconds.
Congratulations to Umbakumba. As is so often the case, conservative sailing and no major mistakes won the day.