JJ Giltinan Trophy - Kiwis on Yamaha snatch a vital win in Race 6

by Richard Gladwell Sail-World.com on 20 Feb 2016 New Zealand's Yamaha grabbed a vital win in Race 6 of the JJ Giltinan Trophy to be in the hunt for a podium place in the series, which is the unofficial 18ft Skiff World Championship.

Caught out by a heavy air forecast which never really eventuated, the 28 strong fleet from three nations, all rigged with their smaller #2 rigs. However after delays to the start - the wind died as the evening advanced, leaving many of the fleet seriously under powered.

Yamaha skipper David McDiarmid told Sail-World that after two attempts at starting the crew decided that it was going to be a lot lighter than expected and tweaked up their small rig for maximum power.

'Just before the last start the breeze really started dying and we decided that it had gone for the day, so we changed everything - all settings to our light wind #2 rig settings - that move paid off handsomely in the end. '

The breeze for the race was from the south, blowing at 16-18kts but with the racing affected by pockets of breeze blowing down the course which enabled some boats to carry a very handy advantage at crucial times.

'The first two starts had an extreme port bias on the line. It was chaos - we had port tackers coming through starboard tackers at will, and ignoring the rules. We couldn't actually lay through the line on starboard. The pin was so close to the rocks that even if you did make the pin end, you had to tack straight away to avoid the rocks at Bradley's Head. It was crazy.'

'Even the third start was still pin end favoured. We just had to start and get onto port tack. We just wanted to start cleanly and not have a crash.'

'The first two starts were just bumper boats - it was crazy.'

After clearing a chaotic start Yamaha was in the lead group at the first mark, chasing Thurlow Fisher, who had pulled off a port tack start, crossed the fleet and looked to be close to making the first windward leg in just one tack. Thurlow Fisher rounded the first mark with a massive lead to be almost out of sight of the next group of four boats.

Yamaha chased and chased the Australian moving through from fifth at the first mark behind defending champion Gotta Love It 7, AON (NZ) and Knight Frank (NZ)

Midway through the race, Yamaha broke through into second place, and the chase began in earnest.

After rounding the penultimate mark on Yamaha was in second place still well behind Thurlow Fisher, who looked set just to have to sail out the remaining two legs of the course to take the race win.

'The boys did an awesome hoist and in a puff, so we rode that and got down inside them.' An errant harbour cruise boat forced both crews to gybe back towards Shark Island.

' Thurlow hit a lull, we just took the puff back out again, gybed and stayed in the puff the whole way down the leg and had a good lead on them at the bottom. Up the next work we just kept a loose cover on Thurlow and bought her home.'

'We came around the bottom mark in good pressure with a left-hand shift. Thurlow tacked away to get away from us, but we decided to do our own thing until we got knocked, and then we went back and established contact with Thurlow, made a little gain, and then tacked on their face, and then just covered in our own time.

' The wind was so shifty that if we had put a tight cover on them, we would have got out of phase and lost, so we just stayed between Thurlow and the finish mark.'

'When the wind went light we had a lot of pace on everyone around us. We were fully powered up while others had people off the wire.

'The wind was forecast to be up to 25kts and when we first reached the race area it was blowing hard, but then it started to die. The forecast was for it to build all day, not for it to die in the late afternoon. It was on and off as the puffs came through.

' We were working on the bottom end of the range for our #2 rig, and it is very fast in those conditions.'

On series points, Yamaha is tied on points for third. 'We can't win, but we can come second,' McDiarmid explained. ' We have to put three boats between ourselves and appliancesonline (David Witt) and beat Gotta Love It 7. '

The forecast for the final race is for 10kts from the east or SE.

' That is good. We go well in the light, but we don't like the Easterly course, And appliancesonline don't go as well in the light. Gotta Love it 7 doesn't go well when it is really light. So maybe we are in with a chance.

' It will all depend on the start and how you get around the top mark.'