autumn 241010

The weather was cold but sunny, wind was expected to be 12knts + a good turn out for the penultimate race of the season, even jorg turned out to race !! and actually started and got to the mark almost in first place.

The tide was going out  and fairly strong and we knew from prev races that we had to tack at the right place or our race would be over, we also started a good run up to the line with good boat speed, unlike before we would be too far back and then struggle to get going.

We followed mark and mike and nick and martin,

we took the first wind shift well and made it to our advantage, tacked off and found our self in a good position in the fleet, we got to the mark in 2nd or 3rd but messed up on the tide, we went back onto starboard to re round the mark much to m chems dissaproval.

We got around but the mark but on the reach found mike doing a 360  as he had hit the mark blaming us for messing him up. poppycock is all i say  because he went around us and past the mark, he just didnt allow for the tide pushing him back, we overtook him and on the first downwind he went lower than us and came out in 3rd we were 5th.

Going around 4 rich called the shot and we didnt make the pin  however we were beating down the line  and i decided  hey lets carry on right and go out to sea, we got pushed back a little and we were all on our own, i said if it works we will do ok  if it did  not our race was over. We tacked and came in at a good speed and richard even went out on the wire as well, we came out on the mark in 4th spot and looked as if we were gaining on the top 3. We discovered we had got infront of mark and we couldnt believe what we had just done. We kept our heads and tried to finnish the race off and hold 4th spot, with the wind dying in places we managed it, however on the very last tack off 4 i did fluff it by moving over too soon and the boat didnt tack.

It was soon remedied and we crossed the line, we were very pleased with what we had done and were praised on the beach by the ones we had beat and others.

When things go right you gain a lot of satisfaction, a simple moment like this made my season, what can we do if we really try and pratice more, next week is the last race, what will it hold in store for us.