Breeze on for Black Sheep racing on day 3

Gidday,

Today the wind was once again blustery and made boat control challenging at times. We only had three races today with two wins and one loss.

Our loss came to fellow kiwi William Tiller after a very close and thrilling match. We managed to gain a penalty on Will in the prestart dialup. Will was moving backwards and we were forced to avoid, being the right of way boat, moving forward. We had a bad start after this, coming off the line with Will tight to leeward of us, forcing us to tack off as soon as we could clear the start boat.

We rounded the top mark about two lengths behind after trading tacks up the beat. The deficit was similar at the bottom where we tacked off soon after rounding. Will gained a little before we got into a right hand shift coming to the top. As we were to the right of him, this meant we gained and when Will tacked to cross he was only a few boat lengths ahead. We then tacked on the port layline at the same time as Will completed his penalty turn on the starboard layline.

As we both reached the top mark we had to tack to avoid, being the port tack give way boat as, had we continued Will would have just clipped our stern. This put us right on his tail for the final run. We set up on his inside to be on his air when he gybed on layline for the finish.

We slowly hauled him in and just before the line he luffed to keep his air clear. At this point we bore away below his stern onto his inside. But it was not quite enough with Will crossing the line half a boatlength ahead.

The other two races against Boiden from Denmark and David Chapman from Sydney we led from start to finish, with the race against David being a little too close than it should due to some poor tacks on our part. Racing was then called off for the day as the Doctor got too strong to race.

The days racing puts us on 4 wins, 5 losses and 5th overall, just outside the top four. So we need to have a good day tomorrow to stay in the hunt for a semi spot. First up we have last year’s winner and fellow Kiwi Phil Robertson.

Until tomorrow, Black Sheep Racing

Bradley Farrand

Matthew Randell

Matthew Bindon

Thomas Bentham

Aaron Reynolds-Lovegrove

Reuben Corbett

Information from Black Sheep Racing

Tags: Black_Sheep Racing Yacht Sailing