The GFS twlight race last Wednesday was the final race of the summer series, it was also one of the Club’s Australia Day Commemoration races. I am vain enough to consider the concept of attending the Sydney Town Hall to recieve a Medallion for winning an Australia Day race to be an attrative one. Looking at the weather forecast on Wednesday morning and seeing predicted winds in the 5 – 10 knot range (Right on G-whizz’s sweet spot), I said to Ann, “I want to win tonight”.

We half jokingly said that we would just follow “Passion”, consistantly the best performing boat for a number of weeks. If we were good enough to stay within “Cooee” of them  they would most probably drag us to a handicap win. This plan fell apart during the pre start when we needed to give a number of starboard tackers room. However it meant that we were able to start at the low end of the line in reasonable wind, a breeze that carried some of us all the way through Humbug.

The drift around Cockatoo Island gave most of us very little oppurtunity to improve postions, then on the work to Goat Island G-whizz’s light air performance meant that we were able to point higher an be faster than most of the fleet, by Goat island there was only “Worlds Apart” ahead and we were closing in on them. Surprisingly we were able to maintain our postion on the run back to Greenwich point, running is normally our achilles heal. Eventually on the work through Humbug “Worlds Apart” was able to get more height than us, while we were just ahead they were able to sail through the line when we had to shoot the mark. Thanks to Chris on Worlds Apart who gave us plenty of room. Officially they beat us by 1 second, but it was more like half a boat length. Second on scratch and the desired handicap win.

With Ann and Chris on headsail duty and Graham on the main meant that all I had to do was point the boat in the right direction.

The results on the GFS web site are here, they are probably a bit flattering to both “Worlds” and ourselves as we were able to finish in the last of any appreciable wind, the rest of the field struggled through Humbug in whatever zephyrs the could find.

We’ve been putting off having the bottom dived, pending G-whizz being slipped. Silly decision. Checking our maintenance records it was back in October when the boat was last dived.  That was rectified on Saturday about an hour before GFS’s Saturday point score race. (Thanks Hugh).

What a difference; after a few weeks of playing around at the back of the field we were able to win the event  (on Scratch) by over 6 minutes from the next competitor. For the first time in a number of races we were achieving target or better speeds. I am amazed at the performance detriment of a dirty bottom. GFS results here.

These Saturday races are a bit unique to us as it is about the only series where we are one of the larger boats in our division, we should be playing with the leaders. The usual gaggle of Young 88s and a few larger Hanses and Bavarias were missing, so we had the head of the pack to ourselves. That said it is satisfying to finish ahead of Brian Carrick’s extremely well sailed Bavaria First 31.7 “Peach Teats – Velocity” (It is his sponsor’s name!). Phil Hare’s 8.5 meter South Coast Magnum “Flair” had a great race finishing 3rd “Off the stick” and 1st on handicap.

Saturday was one of the busiest days I have experienced in our race area, Added to the normal numbers of Lasers, Cherubs, 12 footers, Hartley 16s etc. Were 17 Endeavour yachts competing in their State and National Titles. I normally take a fairly conservative approach with these smaller boats, they too are racing and deserve a fair go, but there was an instance where we were working through a “Chicane” of Cherubs, it was almost impossible to plot my course and for the trimmers to keep the power balanced all at the same time. Anyway I think we got through without causing too much havoc to those astonishly fast Cherubs.

Maybe karma had the last say when on a broad reach on the last leg to the finish, we had a Laser to leeward on the same course heading for his mark. we were unable to gybe onto our best course with him there, after going the wrong way for a number of minutes we had a brief crew consultation and determined that a “Granny” was probably the best way to extradite us from the predicament. No criticism of the Laser sailor, he was sailing in absolute accordance to the rules. I hope he went well.