National Ranker Weymouth 26/27 February 2005
Second overall and first paralympian
This was the first chance to try out GBR 79 in anger. I went down to Weymouth early planning to sail the new boat for a few days beforehand and train alongside Andrew Milband. The weather conspired to keep us off the water and we only managed one very cold day of sailing before the event. The boat seemed to be going well but I would have liked more time to set up and tune the boat better and work on boat handling with the boat's different layout.
The regatta itself had reduced entries due to the extreme cold but the weather for Saturday was good enough to race and four races were completed.
I was the first boat out and had about 3/4 of an hour to log the mean wind direction at between 30 and 20 degrees. The course was set centrally in the harbour at 30 degrees. The wind was changing by between 2 and 3 knots in bands of pressure. Average wind speed dropping from at max before racing of 12 to about 8 at the finish. The course was set at 30 degrees and I felt that this skewed the course towards the right hand side favouring a long port tack whilst seeking pressure and/or wind shifts possibly overriding this strategy. I felt that the initial line was set with 5 degrees of port bias. So a pin end start on port or a quick tack to port likely to be important.
The four races held a mixed bag of fortune and misfortune for all. Andrew and Megan were OCS on the first race, Andrew had a rope caught in his rudder in another, George had to fix a problem and dropped from front to back in one race and Megan was disqualified from a race she won because she apparently did not finish the course - most odd. But I also had mishaps - I was OCS in the first race but I did decide to come back and restart, chase the pack and eventually score a second, whilst in another race a RIB decided to back into me blocking my path to the start. So in the end second was just a fine days work.
November 7, 2009
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