Day 1
Racing abandoned, not enough wind. Lovely and sunny though!
Day 2 in Torvegas. Saturday night has been and gone but the glory will last forever. The RS400 fleet having endured a first day of desultory conditions with a drift to and from line were greeted with a solid 15 – 18 knots across the sailing area. Tobytastic in his eagerness to assert 1383’s dominance was hot out of the blocks with an early run to get a key launching spot.
Race 1 commenced with Howard Farbrother & Dan Martin utterly nailing the start putting in a spectacular port flyer across the whole fleet. After a few seconds of awestruck confusion the fleet realised that they were in fact the pathfinder and all 55 boats started without incident. The general consensus of the first beat being that the best pressure was to the right hand side with Nick Craig and Tobytastic conducting their usual upwind blitzkrieg to storm to the top mark first. Stewart and
Sarah Robertson and James Dawner/Jon Price both kept firm pressure applied to 1383’s lead. This was a theme that continued throughout the race to its inevitable conclusion of a Craig / Lewis 1st place.
Races 2 and 3 were near perfect examples of sprint racing in variable and gusty conditions with big gains to be had from picking the right side of the course upwind and ensuring that you kept yourself in the best pressure downwind. It was by no means clear which side provided the best pressure as gusts traversed the course but with the majority of the pressure filling in from the right that seemed to be the side that paid.
Further down the fleet the usual RS antics panned out with various crews checking their slot gaskets and even one boat (Chief, 1344) doing a sterling job for the race officer of checking the security of the windward mark’s anchorage.
All in all a great day with some hard sailing in some hard conditions. The race officer did a sterling job of setting even courses over consistent distances which made for a very enjoyable day on the water.
Curry and quiz to finish off the day rounds off a very good first day of racing.
Richard Graham-Enock
RS400 1066.
