A warm cloudy day around 26 degrees Celsius with 6-13 knot E to ENE breeze provided great sailing conditions. Thirteen (13) catamarans came down “Felix the cat” with Bruce and Tin sailing around various parts of the course.
This week Keith and Rudi doing duty setting the course. The duty crew set a starboard course to suit the wind conditions and give some clearance to IYC youth regatta course near the entrance to IYC. Start line out front of the club northern side of Gooseberry Island, windward mark over towards the middle of the shallows and the wing mark near the middle of the lake. This week the wind conditions were lighter than those predicted. Championship 6 for large and small cats was held to make up for last weeks cancelled round. Luckily Hayden had a backup battery as the battery went flat and the response boat started to play up again. This time Hayden was able to track down a faulty regulator on the alternator. Hayden plans to sort out during the week.
Small cats split up White Wave, Dark Horse and Hot Pepper taking advantage of the Port bias of the start line the rest of the small cats choosing to start on Starboard. The split start went off without hitch and all cats avoiding each other for a successful start. White Wave and Dark Horse leading the way out to the windward mark going up the middle of the lake. With new mast rake setting Hot Pepper felt it was able to out point Dark Horse and was following White Wave in second place to the top mark. When approaching the top mark Hot Pepper tacked a little too early to try and stay in front of Dark Horse and ran out of room in irons and ended up running into the mark. At this point things turned pear shape as the large cats were looming up as were the other small cats.
So Hot Pepper ended up overshooting the buoy to get out of the way and to do penalty turn and then return to the race trailing all the small cats. The run down to the wing mark was a nice reach with wind angle around 80 degrees as was the run back to the bottom mark. The next time around the bottom mark Hot pepper headed out towards the entrance to IYC so could work up along the shallows to the windward mark. Some ground was made up however the leaders had a good lead.
On the home straight heading to the finish line the cats were met with an abundance of jelly fish hugging the southern shore. As can be seen below Dark Horse and White Wave had an excellent tussle with less than 30 seconds separating them across the finish line. White Wave still consistently at the top with fill in crew Craig Standen as crew with regular crew Amie away. Aus902 and Pilot Error also had a very close race taking it right down to the wire.
See below for a summary of the cats combined times sorted on corrected time...
Tony Zhara is the total master. :-)
And Jody is definitely getting consistently closer
DNS Tin & Bruce Standen "Felix the Cat" Windrush S/Sloop
General Information:
Kembla Kats Regatta Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of March 2016. It would be great to see all our catamarans participating. Looking forward to seeing you there.
This week Keith and Rudi doing duty setting the course. The duty crew set a starboard course to suit the wind conditions and give some clearance to IYC youth regatta course near the entrance to IYC. Start line out front of the club northern side of Gooseberry Island, windward mark over towards the middle of the shallows and the wing mark near the middle of the lake. This week the wind conditions were lighter than those predicted. Championship 6 for large and small cats was held to make up for last weeks cancelled round. Luckily Hayden had a backup battery as the battery went flat and the response boat started to play up again. This time Hayden was able to track down a faulty regulator on the alternator. Hayden plans to sort out during the week.
Small cats split up White Wave, Dark Horse and Hot Pepper taking advantage of the Port bias of the start line the rest of the small cats choosing to start on Starboard. The split start went off without hitch and all cats avoiding each other for a successful start. White Wave and Dark Horse leading the way out to the windward mark going up the middle of the lake. With new mast rake setting Hot Pepper felt it was able to out point Dark Horse and was following White Wave in second place to the top mark. When approaching the top mark Hot Pepper tacked a little too early to try and stay in front of Dark Horse and ran out of room in irons and ended up running into the mark. At this point things turned pear shape as the large cats were looming up as were the other small cats.
So Hot Pepper ended up overshooting the buoy to get out of the way and to do penalty turn and then return to the race trailing all the small cats. The run down to the wing mark was a nice reach with wind angle around 80 degrees as was the run back to the bottom mark. The next time around the bottom mark Hot pepper headed out towards the entrance to IYC so could work up along the shallows to the windward mark. Some ground was made up however the leaders had a good lead.
On the home straight heading to the finish line the cats were met with an abundance of jelly fish hugging the southern shore. As can be seen below Dark Horse and White Wave had an excellent tussle with less than 30 seconds separating them across the finish line. White Wave still consistently at the top with fill in crew Craig Standen as crew with regular crew Amie away. Aus902 and Pilot Error also had a very close race taking it right down to the wire.
See below for a summary of the cats combined times sorted on corrected time...
Tony Zhara is the total master. :-)
And Jody is definitely getting consistently closer
DNS Tin & Bruce Standen "Felix the Cat" Windrush S/Sloop
General Information:
Kembla Kats Regatta Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of March 2016. It would be great to see all our catamarans participating. Looking forward to seeing you there.