Star World Championship - Day 3

by Paul Cayard on 5 Jul 2017 Race two here in Troense and the race committee held us a shore for a couple of hours as the wind was too strong once again. Finally we went out for a 13:45 start. At the first start the fleet was too aggressive and had to be recalled. For the second start, just as yesterday, the race committee displayed the black flag. This means that if any part of the boat is over the starting line within one minute prior to the starting signal the boat is disqualified.

Danny and I had a good start in the 18 knot westerly. We soon suffered the consequences of being 20 kilos light as we made our way up the first windward leg. We managed to get around the first mark around 30th and made up a few places down the first run. The wind freshened to 22 knots at this point. On the second windward leg, we sailed out to the right just to keep our wind clean and it turned out to be good and we probably round the second windward mark in the low 20’s. Any this point here were gusts of 24 knots and the day was starting to look like Sunday again. On the second run, we stuck the wisker pole in the water and nearly broke the mast…. One of the spreaders gave way, tore the mainsail and the mast was bent. We managed to get the boat back to the dock with the mast up! We took it down and straightened it with the help of Diego Negri and a few others. It is back in the boat and looking good for tomorrow.

Up front Facundo Bazan of ARG with Juan Pablo Engelhard crewing won the race while Rienhard Schmidt GER with Paul Sradnick were second and Eivind Melleby with Josh Revkin were third. Schmidt now leads the regatta followed by Bazan and then Melleby. Yesterday’s winner, Lars Grael finished ninth and is now in fourth place overall.

The forecast for tomorrow is for 10-12 knots of wind. The race committee has scheduled two races to try to get ahead in the schedule as Thursday and Friday look very light, possible too little wind. It is kind of feast or famine around here. The good news is it didn’t rain too hard today!

Danny and I are doing it tough but still smiling. He is getting a real dose of Star sailing here at his first World Championship. We have had a couple late nights of working on the boat to put it all back together. Of course the first two days have been quite windy rather than easy sailing. I should have throttled us back a bit today but they call it racing, right? Anyway, we are all good to go for tomorrow and looking forward to another opportunity.

Happy fourth of July to all my friends back home!