Fair dinkum

A few years ago the club decided to extend the racing season into September. A fall series was added. The start is 30 minutes earlier. It is difficult for some crews to make the earlier start so the series does not count in the season's overall results. There are two starts. All white sail entries are start 1 and all FS are start 2.

The first race had excellent conditions. The course was "Whiskey" with a windward mark bearing of 205. It was a short course at 0.5 nautical miles. We had a great start. It was particularly nice looking down the start line and seeing the bows nicely lined up. (Too bad I couldn't get a photo.)

The combination of big and little boats in one start makes for some traffic on the first leg. Our big mistake was tacking too soon. The bigger boats created exhaust. We thought we could make the line, and could of made it, if there wasn't the other boats already on the layline. We had to make several tacks to avoid the other boats; a sad situation of having to sit by and watch a number of boats get ahead.

We didn't make the same mistake on the second windward leg. We sailed the boat well. We knew we were well behind the J22 but with a large fleet it is really hard to figure out what effect the PHRF handicap will have on the results. The PRO had a difficulty in pronouncing Aristosera when the results were announced. It took us awhile to figure out that we got a second, fair dinkum.