A bit of a starboard lift at the start in the oscillating scheme of things leaves Dwight (4606) with the early lead but Al (3854) is happy where he is: well clear of Geoff (9483) to leeward. The next oscillation should be a back and should drop Dwight into Al's backwind, but until then Al must make sure he does not let Dwight sail over his wind by pinching too much!!
- click here for full-size pic

No sooner said than done. Seconds later, the starboard knock comes through, and now Dwight will be life and death to stay out of Al's backwind.  Of course, textbook wisdom says tack on the knocks as Ross (3099) and Sue (4677) have done, but for Al who has identified Dwight as the one boat he cannot afford to lose to again this early in the 5-race series, tacking on knocks at this point is less important than staying with Dwight and not letting him get far ahead. So Al doesn't mind being "pinned" and kept from tacking here, because it is Dwight who is doing the pinning. If Dwight tacks, Al will, of course, stay with him.
- click here for full-size pic

The starboard knock has allowed Dave Richardson (4782) to tack and cross Henry (3125) who still has his traveller off centre to leeward and whose pointing will thus suffer. Looks like Fred (2nd from right) is once more indulging his predilection for the left corner where a starboard lift at the completely wrong time may well leave him scuppered! - click here for full-size pic

Starting with extreme caution, our newcomers, Andy and Joan (555) do have one advantage: they are free to tack on those headers without to much worry about being blocked by right-of-way boats! Race 1 third-place finisher, John de Boer, has left himself a hard row to hoe: a rather delayed start was bad enough but now he has Andrew (9657) blocking  him from tacking on this starboard knock. Here, John appears to be weighing the wisdom/possibility of a fast tack and violent bearing away to pass astern of Andrew without fouling him, but unless John waits a bit longer, such a manoeuvre will only leave him in Andy's backwind. Always lots of decisions to be made, thinking to be done, especially going upwind in a closely bunched group!  

Nearing the gybe mark: Having sailed to get/stay ahead of Dwight (l) has taken care of all Al's problems, i.e. by rounding ahead of Dwight, Al (not seen here) rounded ahead of everyone else as well. Surprise: John and Dolores (7351) found happiness in the left corner after their belated start, and are now threatening to move past Dwight and Pat into 2nd!