Mini-weekend tonight, as we like to call the Wednesday evenings at Wembley, and the forecast was for 9-10 knots southerly wind.<\/p>\n
I arrived at the Harp with plenty of time. I rigged Bubble and since everything was wet since last Sunday, I left her rigged, so the sail would dry in the wind. I went to get changed and I decided to dress wamrly, because I thought the spray would make me feel cold. I didn’t have watch today because I left it home in the morning, so my start wouldn’t be that great.<\/p>\n
I went out and the wind was definitely stronger than 10 knots. I saw a few capsizes before the start, but I managed to stay upright for the whole evening. It looked like we would have a quite long beat but other than that it looked fine. My start, as expected, was bad. I thought the only thing I can do is just keep going. I started the first beat, hiking quite hard, around the windward mark and off to a short reach. Two boats were close behind me and I was trying to keep them off. Around mark 1 and off to a long run. Douglas managed to pass me, so from now on it’s a battle to catch him.<\/p>\n
The whole race was about reaching Douglas. Some times you would be far away, some times much closer. At times I would see Liam, or someone else, very close ahead, usually after a capsize. I kept going. I wasn’t worried for the boats astern. I would look back just to make sure that they are not threatening my position, but I was focused on the boat ahead. Other than that I was enjoying the race. It was a pretty good course with a good beat and a reasonable run. On the last lap and as I was thinking that I won’t be able to catch Douglas, I saw him fiddling with his tiller. It seemed like the joint between the tiller and the extension came off. I hiked hard, let the outhaul out to get more speed and hoped that I will be able to pass him. It seemed he was struggling to sort out he problem, so I managed to pass him and went on to finish ahead of him at 9th place.<\/p>\n
Not a great result, but I really enjoyed the race. It was a steady wind for the Welsh Harp’s standards without many gusts or extreme shifts. No racing on Sunday, I might do Saturday instead. We’ll see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mini-weekend tonight, as we like to call the Wednesday evenings at Wembley, and the forecast was for 9-10 knots southerly wind. I arrived at the Harp with plenty of time. I rigged Bubble and since everything was wet since last Sunday, I left her rigged, so the sail would dry in the wind. I went… <\/p>\n