Ora, Sam and Nico - E6 Match Racing Regatta
(Photo Credits: Dion Mead)
Day One (Ora Mead): The first day of the regatta was our first time racing as a crew, and we couldn’t have asked for much better weather. After a short briefing, we all got into our gear and headed down to rig up the boats. Once we were all on the water, we did a few upwinds and downwinds before getting ready for the start. For our first two races, we didn’t really know the start sequence which didn’t do us any favours since we were about 30 seconds late to the first start. We didn’t win any races on the first day, but the racing got closer throughout the day as we started to work out what to do.
Day Two (Sam Streeter):
We went into the second day of racing ready to put in some effort and try to come away with some better results. We had a really nice and steady southerly and headed around to the top of Evans bay. After finishing off the round robin we went into our semi-finals against the crew skippered by Rory Sims, who was the top ranked going into the regatta. It was three tough races, and we weren’t able to come away with a win, but we definitely put some pressure on them and didn’t make it easy. After losing that we were into the 7th - 8th playoffs the next day.
Day Three (Nico Holmes):
On the last day of the regatta we were in the battle for 7th place. The day started with a light northerly breeze which died away, eventually switching around to a steady southerly. We had the boat with the halyard problem so we ended up being the last out of the marina, giving us a speedy ride over to Evans bay to catch up to the others. On our first race we had the ideal start due to the QCYC team having their halyard come down. From then on the racing was close and the breeze gave us some fast runs down to the finish line. Sadly we didn’t win any races, but we definitely got close. With the crew sustaining a few minor injuries this was definitely an exciting day.
Summary (Sam Streeter):
Overall I would say that we should be happy as a crew with how the regatta went. It may have started off a bit rough, but by the end of it we were consistently able to put pressure on the competition and even come very close to winning some races. For having never even sailed as a crew on the boat before the regatta we worked very well together and were even able to outperform some of the other more experienced crews with our boat handling.
I had a lot of fun and I hope the rest of my crew did as well. I think if we can continue with consistent training some better results could be in the works for a potential grade 5 regatta in the future. It's only up from here and I hope we can continue racing in the future.
Opmerkingen