BURNSCO SUMMER SERIES Race 6

We were pleased with yet another sea breeze at 12-14 knots, although too strong for No 1 Genoa and perfect for No 2 light, But if it drops we my have a problem as we know, Future Feedback will carry their No 1 heavy, we don't have one. They did.
Crew :- Kev, Patrick, Steve, Knoxy, Matt, Aaron. (No girls tonight?)
Always a little disadvantaged on a No 2 off the start as we lack horsepower for the reach to the pile line and entrance, tonight would be worse as we also had a 500m reach from the entrance to Beacon 0.

Plan! a good start to leeward with clear air, the club end, giving us a tighter reach,
The actual start ? middle of the line to weather of Future Feedback and luffed up the line, complete opposite to our pre start planning?
Again only 7 in Div 1, 6th out the entrance to Pile 0, only Smak behind us, Future Feedback ahead, while Blackout out front had clear air, along with an incoming tide which meant flatter water our chances weren't looking great.

At Pile 0 Ballistic tacked onto port early, and up the Boulder Bank to clear their air from Blackout. Wild Thing, Redline and Future Feedback all tacking as they cleared their air, then finally Blackout.
We were now the only boat heading out on starboard, although the tide was coming in we were only in the 1st hour of flood, so looking like more pressure out a bit ? we pushed on for a bit.
Once in better pressure and a wee knock, we tacked onto port, all the rest except Ballistic were coming back out on starboard,  As we approached F F  we had a to either dip them or lee bow tack, I love lee bows, so through onto starboard, a nice tack, managing to build speed before they rolled us, now up to speed we could take advantage of our pointing on our No 2 and started to squeeze them up, until they were forced to tack away.

We tacked back in soon after, Blackout coming out on starboard, would be our next cross and was looking close, in fact we were now Bow to bow with them, nice catch up considering our 6th at the bottom, we tacked onto starboard to leeward rather than dip them,  once up to speed we were a little quicker, surprising considering breeze and flatter sea.
Blackout went back into the Boulder Bank while we went out a little further as it still looked like slightly better breeze but a little more tide.
We tacked back  in to keep in touch, next cross we crossed Blackout's bow by about 4 metres, we were now in 2nd place too Ballistic, not bad? we had taken 5 boats and only half way up the beat.

Ballistic meanwhile had enjoyed a quite sail up the Bank on their own, while the rest of us crossed tacks fighting with each other. They were close in with less tide, we were 100 metres to weather, behind, more breeze, more tide, but we were slowly reeling them in.
Three quarters the way up the beat we rolled over Ballistic and into 1st place, around Boulder north mark, nice kite hoist and off down to Boulder middle, Blackout had rounded in 2nd, just ahead of Ballistic, I finally had a chance to look around on the run, Future Feedback had slipped back, now fighting with Redline and Wild Thing.

Around Boulder middle, back on the wind to Boulder North then the long run back to Pile 0 off the harbour entrance,
We held our 400 - 500 metres on Blackout but they had worked  out to sea, with maybe more tide and breeze, we weren't too worried until we gybed at Pile 0 for the entrance which was a little tight for our kite and perfect for Blackout's gennaka.
They were now smoking up on us, to make matters worse we were coming up on slower boats, race on.

We dropped the kite, 2 sail reaching up to block Blackout before the entrance but they managed an overlap before No 1 beacon, but still had their gennaka to drop, as we came up on another slower boat from one of the other Divisions, we built speed and stayed low to break through the Div 3 boat, at the same time Blackout was dropping their gennaka, both back on the pile line we had a 3 boat length lead, we only needed to sit on their bow to the finish, finishing 23 seconds ahead.

3  line honours in a row, 3rd on handicap. 5 races and we are on only 10 points 3-1sts, 3rd, 4th
We are now leading the series overall by 7 points from Future Feedback. with only 4 more races to go

Div 2 is being dominated by the Lidguard 35 "MacIntosh" (Kim Harris) by 11.5 points.