Regatta Report
4/25/2007 - Day 1 & 2 Hyeres
Hello Race Fans,
We are about to begin the last day of gold fleet qualifying and the
sailing has been challenging so far. The race management has decided
to put the 470 men, women, and Finn class on the same course, so the
course is crowded. They divided the one hundred twelve Men's 470 teams
into only two heats to keep the number of heats down on the course,
but this means that there 56 on the starting line which is about 20
more boats on the line than we usually see.
Our goals for this regatta are not results oriented. In our practices
we have been working on passing boats and sailing through the fleet,
and we have been doing that very well here. Now we are shifting our
focus to big fleet starting and will get some practice on the long
starting line.
The racing:
We have been stuck in a weather pattern of light morning wind and an
unstable late afternoon sea breeze. In race one we got swallowed by
the fleet after the start (we were a bit behind the line), but worked
our way up to 12th by the top of the 2nd beat. At the very top of the
2nd beat a short lived 40 degree left shift hit, and the fleet
inverted. We finished the race 32nd.
In race 2, we were rafted at the pin end of the line going backwards
and then had to do penalty turns. We were two minutes behind at go but
sailed a great race passing 10 boats every leg. All the coaches
cheered when we finished the race 13th!
Race 3 was similar to race one, we had a mediocre first mark rounding,
but were passing boats downwind and were just outside the top 10
halfway up the second beat. The breeze then died and refilled 50
degrees from the right. Teams set their spinnakers on the upwind leg.
We were middle left at the time and lost 20 boats. We finished the
race 30th.
For full results check out: http://hyeres.ffvoile.net/results/470m.htm
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