Winter Series Race 5 - there is no justice.

After the disappointing race last week it was good to get the bit back between our teeth and put in what we thought was a decent performance.

Our start was down the pin end keeping out of the way of the big boats and our air clear. Draig rolled over the top of us and the boat speed was down but we kept left as I was convinced that this was the only way to go. This was proved when we rounded the windward mark on the transom of Rattler and leaving the two sigmas behind us, a very rare occurrence.

The course was a triangle sausage with the first leg being deemed too shy for a kite hoist in the squally 30 odd knots of the low pressure system, the next leg was a little free-er but the following seas made us take the discretionary white sail route with only 5 on board and some lumpy following seas. We still got quite a few surfs though.

I guess we lost it on the upwind sections as punching back into these seas was a mistake but we followed the fleet in the poor visibiliy due to the rain. We soon realised and tacked back in but perhaps the damage had been done.

The downwing leg from D - J was pure joy. We had the touareg ayso plugged in so thought that we could get pretty deep on it in that wind. A steady 10 knots of boat speed was achieved with "turbo" boosts from the following squall. We were going so fast that we nearly overshot the mark and had to semi-mexican the takedown as I couldn't wait to gybe any longer. It actually was a very slick takedown when it really mattered.

We'd overtaken Snowgoose but not actually in the direction of the mark. She beat us over the line but not by enough. A shame to lose to Rattler by about 30 seconds corrected because we deserved better. The race was only about an hour though and we sailed back in into the teeth of a rain storm. Big winds coming our way this week so I hope FarrOut is tucked in on her mooring safe enough!

Dreadful Race

This week's race was horrible for us, we just could not seem to get her to go upwind. This was combined with me pushing my luck downwind sailing by the lee which ended in a massive chinese gybe. So that's another spinnaker sheet at the bottom of Weymouth bay. Last. Miserable.