Frustrating night for the first of the twilight series but 6 races completed. The forecast W wind was fighting with a NE sea breeze all night resulting in variations between the two directions and 12 knts at one stage dropping down to about 5-6 at others. No wind on arrival so nobody was really ready for racing. 5.45 a nice 10 knt westerly came in, everyone rushed to finish set up, we decided to do manual timing to save time with electronic timing set up and by 6 we had done briefing and ready to go with lightweights on the start line..... only for wind to go north. Quick change of course and a bit of a wait, wind swung back west and first race was under way. Sometimes getting down the road was easy other time it needed a couple of tacks but over the rest of the night we only stopped and restarted one race.
numbers were down a bit with some sailing the Bay of Islands regatta, others still away and others nursing injuries (come back soon Bruce).
There were some good battles in the lightweights with Barry getting three hard fought wins after some battles with Mako and Brian with Graham and Grant also close in a couple of races.
Heavyweights had myself and Alex fighting it out with John and Neil also right up there, except the 2nd race when the timing crew called 7 over at the start which meant extra laps. Those who went back or were late for the start did well with Roger taking out the race. The wind was dropping for the last race and those who could pick winds changes and sail good angles well came through.
We will do some light wind training in the future as quite a few are still lost when the wind drops off. Sailing a longer course but at better wind angles is a lot faster but needs to be practiced.
Casual sailing this Sunday or the Bay race day for the keen ones. Twilight racing next Thursday.
Results out soon.
Russell
posted by Auckland Blokart News #
2:34 pm