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Hi all,
The regatta is done and dusted now, boats are packed and we are in Eastbourne visiting relatives for the weekend. The last two days racing were a bit up and down for us, but we managed to climb up a few places to finish 30th overall. We are happy with this result, we are sure
we could have done a bit better, but all things considered we are happy and think this is a good result to build on going forward. As we have said before the standard of the fleet was very high with the British boats a touch quicker and certainly local knowledge appeared to be
beneficial. An indicator of this was the six Hayling Island boats finishing in the top ten! Another example of the standard of the fleet was results year on year, with sailors like Kate's dad who finished 8th at the last worlds finishing in 31st this time. We know where we have
to improve going forward; we never once were able to hold our lane off the start for more than a minute so we need to develop a good high mode coupled with better acceleration off the start line. Boat handling was good for both regattas with Kate improving exponentially over the
time we have been here, it goes to show the improvements that can be made by sailing day in day out. The other area that let us down was tactics upwind, albeit a lot of the sailors struggled, with the breeze proving fickle and unpredictable. Here is a summary of our last couple
of days racing:
Day 6
The race committee moved the start time forward from 1pm to 10am in a bid to get a couple of races away and catch up to the race schedule. Unfortunately we ended up sitting around floating in the race area close to the beach with the gentle offshore breeze proving too
unstable for racing until about 2pm. We got into a start sequence but with a couple of minutes to go the breeze shifted left about 40 degrees, we would have had a good start close to the pin and above most of the fleet but the start was abandoned. We then waited around a while
for the breeze to stabilize. Eventually we got another start away in about 4-5 knots.. We again got spat out at the start and found it hard to get clear air and get towards the left hand side of the course which we thought would pay, as it had been hinting at all day. However
two thirds of the way up the beat the breeze went right big time and became a lay through for half the fleet, unfortunately not for us though! It was a long slog back from close to last, but we came through the fleet to finish in 26th. Not a bad result considering the calibre of
sailors behind us, including the previous two world champions! Certainly an unpredictable race and resulted in a number of competitors actually boarding the race committee boat after the race and venting their frustration at the race officer, not pretty! No more racing on this
day as the race committee did decide it was too unstable for racing.
Day 7
We won't go into the first race in too much detail, it is safe to say it was a shocker. Finally we had a Hayling Island sea breeze, a good 10-15 knots from about 170 degrees. We struggled for pace upwind, couldn't get through the waves, made some bad decisions upwind and
ended up a disappointing 46th. We knew we were going to have to sail a good race to make sure we finished the regatta on a good note and ended up in a satisfactory position. Again we struggled off the line and rounded the top mark mid-fleet but we sailed a fairly good race from
then on, chipping boats off on most legs, especially downwind, and finishing 17th. A good thing, as we were both pretty disappointed after the first race of the day.
So all in all we are happy that we achieved what we wanted to. 30th is solid result, but more importantly we know what we need to do to improve.
Once again we would like to thank or sponsors; Altex Coatings, Oral Surgery Associates, Mediterranean Shipping Company, Zhik and our friends and family for making this trip possible.
Also a big thank you for all the letters, cards and emails with messages of support we have received over the last few weeks, especially the team at GBC for their very thoughtful card. We look forward to seeing you all when we get back home.
We have attached a photo taken from the beach on the last day and the results are available on www.hisc.co.uk
Ben and Kate
NZL 3839
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Click here for larger image
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