Home - Carl Williams - Day 6 - Race 5 A Bag ...

Day 6 - Race 5 A Bag of Liquorice All Sorts

Posted 4 months, 20 days ago

Day 6 - Race 5 A Bag of Liquorice All Sorts
Conditions: 5-20knts NPlacings: Top Mark 10th, Bottom Mark 15th?, Top Mark (2) 12th, Bottom Mark (2) 12th, Finish 15th.Liquorice All Sorts is the only way to really describe the today. Wind, no wind, left shift, right shift, doing well, doing bad, doing well again!  We headed out onto the Race Course preparing for what looked like a very similar day to yesterday (Breezy). By the time we had a couple of General Recalls and the Race Committee moved the course to fit with the wind shifting, we started in about 5-7knts of Breeze and very shifty. It was again a black flag start with about 5 boats being caught over the line. A tacking frenzy ensued amongst the fleet to 1. Find a lane and 2. Stay in phase with the ever shifting Breeze. Pepsi did a pretty good job to the top mark keeping us a the right end of the race and we rounded the top mark in the front group. The Down wind leg provided some pretty interesting conditions as the breeze was trying to establish itself over the race course, the end result being the whole fleet converging together at the bottom mark at the same time!!! We got around just in time to avoid all the yelling, crashing and banging and set off upwind. Half way up the beat the wind had risen to 15knts and by the time we got to the top mark it was blowing 18 to 20knts! So from our light air mode we were forced to adapt to the new conditions. Not a lot changed down the last run but up the last beat to the finish it started to get very shifty with the fleet spread wide across the course. We crossed the line in 15th place with a sigh of relief. It had been a tough day in the office, an absolute fight just to finish there. It could have been better but again it could have been a lot worse!Now that we get to drop our worst result (105th BFD) we sit in 4th Position overall going into the last day tomorrow. We have a strong chance of jumping into the medal spots but there are some very good guys on our tail looking to do exactly the same. Tomorrow will just be another day of Sailing to our potential and letting the numbers fall as they do. For sure we will be keeping an eye on the boats close to us on the Overall but that is also a trap to fall into with such a large fleet and testing conditions.Looking forward to tomorrow, nothing like the last race of the World Championships when you get to battle it out at the top!  Full Story »

Comments are currently disabled