We had another awesome sailing day, and this is how we got it...
Started the day at the Royal Selangor Yacht Club, wind wasn't blowing in the morning,
this worries me a bit as we will be sailing with six today with pik yi coming on board,
and to add, there is a change to the sailing plan, Jeremy Camps our club Sailing Secretary decided that we should do some match racing too.
Off we go, Today we have Vincent on the helm, yew on the Trim, Pikyi and Simon sharing the pit, Hoe on the main and me as usual on the foredeck.
Race 1, fleet race - Wind went up to around 10 to 12 knots ,
and the left side of the course looks favor with its shallow water, current is about lets say 2 knots . Wind and current both from south east.
We started well but Jeremy camps had the best start, with the strong current everyone was heading to the shallow water first. Those who didn't got left a little behind. Nearing the Windward mark, we are one of the 3 boats in contention to round the windward mark first. We had Jeremy but somehow Tom managed to sneak passed us rounding the mark first with us close behind. Down at leeward mark, we tries to get room, Tom some how had some problem with its spinnaker. We capitalize on it and never looked back.
Race 2, Match Racing - Us against Ayin's Team, Ayin will be taking helm for Team AsianYachting.com for the Malaysian Monsoon Cup qualifier later this year, we were on port side, Ayin was late coming into the line, we sailed pass her and went straight behind the committee boat, and then we were circling each other by doing tacking and gybing. Hoe needed the warm up as its has been quite sometimes since he trim the main this much. Ayin was too into it, and didn't realize the time, we started ahead, she made a mistake of going to the right side of the course first instead of getting into the shallows first. We won the race.
Match Race 2, we were on bye, as we rested we observed the other teams. All of them rounded the mark on starboard as oppose to port as written on the Sailing instruction. Though Match Race are normally done on starboard rounding, it is not at all unusual to do port rounding. Always read the Notice of Race and the Sailing instructions. I received the NoR for the Malaysian Qualifier the other day, perhaps I shall share it here another time.
Race 3, Match Race, Us against Tom, Tom is a very good sailor. He will be one of the entries for our club, is it not known whose his crews are, I do hope he gets to bring his own crew.
We started against them with a dial up, he move from the dial up and made a mistake of sailing to the port side, the pin end. we bore off fast and tried to keep him on the pin end, yet we were slow and we started circling, moments passed and we were push to the middle of the starting line by the current. 1 minute left, we were both on starboard tack, we were the leeward board, we
had overlap and tried to push him off the line, but then the wind swung towards the east backfiring our plan, and he started ahead of us with us following closely, we only mange to caught up in the leeward mark, where we managed room, and got ahead after that, but Tom was sailing really fast with them taking the lead back on the windward mark. But he had no idea wind swung again to the east, now the wind is blowing north east. He made a mistake of gibing first to take advantage of the current. Vincent realize the wind condition and asked us the hold as we are on a tight reach to the finishing pin already! Tom realizing his mistake and gybed back. But it was too late as we took the 3rd bullet of the day.
4th Race - Fleet Racing - Its a sail back to the club, it would be a spinnaker run back to the club, but the wind had been swinging to the north. therefore it could be too shy to fly the spin.
We started with Jeremy below us and Tom above us on windward, he was the first the hoist the spin as we decides to wait. Bad idea, Jeremy and us immediately pulled ahead, with having to sail a few degree lower than us, half the course, yew decided its time for us to hoist, by this tim Tom have already downed his spin and trying to sail high. We hoisted , and Jeremy pull away sailing higher, yew reasoning was, we sailed the shorter course. Anyway we caught at the erm..river junction to the club. now we are both on a square run, starboard tack with us covering them with the wind and current favoring us.We went ahead and ends our day with another bullet!
Still talking about the mark rounding after the race.
We Improved our leads to 3 points!!
