Nat - helm / main
Mark - trim
Nathan - pit and tactics
Mike - mast and foredeck
Heading to the race course, we ended up bang in the middle of a lot of frenzy bird and sea lion activity:
Conditions were between 2 to 7 knots, with a fairly strong ebb most of the time.
Pretty rainy.
This is Nat's writeup...I was so focused on boat speed, constantly checking wind direction, the shape of the main, making minute adjustments to the sail trim and talking with the trimmer both upwind and downwind that I have actually no idea about what happened tactically.
Foredeck done with clearing up the deck and getting back to the rail
All I remember is that one upwind was great and a tactical move made us catch up with most of the fleet, with Nathan playing up a wind shift to the left and picking up the side of the course with more wind and less adverse current. I also remember a boat speed duel with Wile E Coyote - we rounded the leeward mark at the same time, with Wile E slightly ahead of Elise and followed the same course to the finish line. This was combined with a tactical call by Nathan with a gybe to get advantage of a patch of really nice fresh breeze. Wolfgang captured a perfectly clear view of the race course.
Elise is definitely faster without the driver's appendix. Note the little spectra line at the back to prevent the mast from falling if all blocks on the backstay fail...
We got a 4th in this race.
Heading back in good company
We found the sea lions waiting for us on a channel marker
Back at the dock:
Nat left early to spend the evening with Gaia, visiting for the weekend.
Something was waiting for us back home...
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