..fROM pALMA..

***courtesy of sailinganarchy.com***

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Brad Nichol's report from the Princess Sofia trophy Star regatta. he is crewing for hamish Pepper.

I went on the record saying it was not that cold here in Palma… Well, I changed my mind. The mix of cold cloudy skies, HAIL, and cold water made for a very unpleasant day. Top it off with difficult shifty conditions and poor race committee work and we finished the day a bit sour and with some work to do tomorrow.

In the first, and only race of the day we had one general recall and a start that should have been a general. With one minute and thirty seconds to go the fleet was lined-up right at the line and a micro puff blew down the line and all the boats lurched forward a length. At thirty to go I told Hamish I saw my line sight and we were well over the line. The boats around us trimmed on at 20 to go and we went with them. We were a good three or four boat lengths over when the gun went off and there was only 1 boat called over -- the Spanish who sailed up the course before the start. This has been the case all week with the Finn class and really makes for bad racing.

The race went on and was dominated by big shifts. Hamish and I made it to the weather mark in 35th and jibe-set downwind because everyone ahead of us was reaching to the leeward mark. Four boats behind us split from the fleet on a flier (aka hail mary) and ended up rounding the second mark in the top ten after a big left shift.

On the second beat we hung it out to the right where we saw a big, dark cloud and caught a nice righty. Even though we over stood the layline, we still rounded in the top 15. Again, we could lay the finish line from the weather mark and reached towards the finish in a big pack. Right at the line the wind died and Hamish and I were able to keep the boat moving and squeak by the committee boat to finish tenth.

Our tenth place finish moves us back to 5th overall. Robert Scheidt won his fifth race in a row to lock up the victory as long as he takes his victory lap and finishes last or better in tomorrow's medal race. Second through eighth place is very tight going into the medal race with points counting double and we could easily end up anywhere from second to eighth in the regatta.

Cheers!

Brad

***courtesy of sailinganarchy.com***