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Only a few
seconds to go before the start of race #5: (left
to right) Roger
(7700), Dwight, Stefan, Heider, Peter Ayres
(1191), Peter Rahn, Ryan
(7380,
nearest the pin), Fred and Keith. So where is
Uncle Al who should
really
be right near Heider since the series is now
pretty well down to the
two
of them?
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Just seconds
after the start: Starboard tack seems to
have lifted a bit, and
Hans
Gottschling (938) and Randy (3613) look excellent
off the RC boat end.
Other from left to right are: Ivan (7350 and a bit
late, tsk! tsk!),
Kit
Wallace (1037), John deBoer (7351), Roger, Stefan
and Heider. Still no
sign of Uncle Al...
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Those who got
off at the windward end of the line are doing
well: Randy (middle,
3613),
Hans (938) and George (CAN80) as well as Hazel
(4107 which could do
with
more vang tension) are all crossing the first of
the port tackers, John
deBoer (7351) and Peter Rahn (5631) who in turn
are crossing 7227 which
is being sailed in a pretty relaxed fashion by Reg
and Frances.
In the end, it paid
a bit to favour the left side and at the
windward mark it was
Keith
Haill
around first by 2-3 lengths over Heider who had a
similar lead over Al.
This leg, a broad spinnaker reach, was a critical
point in the series.
Heider, perhaps remembering race 1 where he tried
to pass the leaders
to
windward and got sailed overly high, chose to
attack Keith by going
through
to leeward. This left Al the opportunity of
sitting on Heider's wind
while
still far enough to leeward of Keith to avoid the
effects of his wind
shadow.
About 100 metres from the mark, Al managed to surf
past Heider and into
an inside overlap on Keith. This status changed a
few times as each of
the leaders got their turn to surf, but at the
critical two-length
distance,
Al had the inside overlap on Keith and a
boatlength of water between
his
transom and Heider's bow.
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Al and Frank (3854)
made no mistakes coming out of their gybe (above)
onto
a
fairly close spi reach to the leeward mark, while
Heider and Tom (6)
overcame
a spi pole end fitting that came off the pole
during their gybe to
still
end up in a controlling position over Keith (grey
& white spi). For
more pictures from this reach, click here!
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With his young
crew, Carl, Roger (7700) wisely decided to forego
the spi on this close
and gusty reach. John and Dolores deBoer (blue
& green spi) are
showing
the perfect technique for dealing with an
overpowering gust on a close
spi reach: Dolores is hiked out as far as possible
while John has
immediately
eased the main (and vang?) which not only takes
much of the
power/heeling
force from the main but also closes the slot
between the spi leech and
the main to further depower the sail plan. Their
end result is a nicely
falt, emminetly controllable boat!! Also showing
good spi reach form
behind
John are: Ivan and Chris Pedersen and Hans
Gottschling with Scott
Moddle.
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A bit further
down the same reach, these same four boats (plus
Dwight Aplevich with
the
orange and white spi) come upon a Man
Overboard situation with
a
safety boat standing by. It appears that Stefan
Larson has missed the
boat
so to speak, a boat which has just been re-righted
with the blue,
yellow
and white spi still hoisted. Note that
spinnaker-less Roger has lost
little
if anything to the deBoers!
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