Day 5 at Etchells Worlds – Race 6
Not a good one for us today. Conditions more like Kiel than San Francisco Bay. There was no fog, but plenty of cloud. The seabreeze never got going. We had a shifty and patchy 10 knot sou-wester.
We had a great start again, but toward the top of the beat we got the wind strategy wrong and were back with the pack around 10th at the mark. Well, that was until we hit the mark. After our penalty we were really in some traffic and gybed out at the top of the run, only to sail to the wrong side of the run, followed by going the wrong way up the second beat. By the end of the second beat we were probably 40th. We passed a few on the last lap to come 26th.
So, we can no longer win, but a good day tomorrow will see us on the podium in third. We have a lot of competition for this, as the scrambly results today closed the whole competition up somewhat.
Our was not the only tale of woe today. Shark Khan actually finished 2nd, but was disqualified for starting early. They went from the regatta lead to no longer having a shot at winning. They are gutted. The regatta leader Jud Smith punted around with us all race to finish 29th. By virtue of consistency up to this point, he retains a slight lead over Tito Gonzales (who won today). Tito is a bit of an unknown in the class. He is not rocket-ship fast upwind or down, but has had all good starts and has nailed every first beat on the right side. It’s a showdown between him and Jud for the title tomorrow.
Off to bed. New day tomorrow….