72 boats on the line for the first race after the summer break – really the first race of the year as it runs from Sept to June.
Isabel, Ella, Domino, Mark and Pete, plus the usual amount of food and water made for a heavy boat in the light conditions. But we wouldn’t have it any other way, and suggestions to leave food behind were received a little frostily. We got away off the star and headed out to sea to try and find breeze – wind of 3-4 knots made the first leg to Garoupe Bay a challenge. We got to the mark in a pack of boats and after setting the big green chute, we started the long leg to the airport. The wind being very forward, we used lessons learned from J24 days to make the spinnaker perform almost upwind. Catching and passing boats, plus fighting off the odd challenger made this a fun leg, and by now the wind had filled in to 6-8 knots. Great crew work at the mark meant a late drop and shutting out a boat, then off for a long tack to the finish. Managed to fly the code-0 for a while, then back to the jib to finish amongst the super-yachts.
4th in a class of 20 for the Coupe d’Antibes.