47th Blackheart Hartley 16 Nationals 2013 New Plymouth
by Monique Towers on 18 Jan 2013
Day 2 Blackheart Hartley 16 Nationals Monique Towers
On Day 2 of the 47th Blackheart Hartley 16 Nationals the weather didn’t improve by much. The wind was an average of 20-25 knots with gusts of up to 30 knots and a swell of two metres. Only two races were completed today as damage was again a big factor of the day taking a few boats out of action!!
The first race was won by Tickled Pink (Thijs Calkeon and Paul de Munk) with Shoestring (Guy Pilkington and Grant Hartley) winning the second race. Simon Holdt went into the day leading the regatta but after blowing out a jib in the first race ending up 10th and second in the second race putting them in third place overall.
After a consistent days racing Alan Holdt is leading the regatta with Guy Piilkington in a close second.
The biggest drama of the day was the capsize boat of Tramp from Napier in the second race. The crew was in the water for 2hours while the boat was towed in. The younger members of the fleet were rounded up and taken out to the boat once they made it to flat water to help right the boat.
Still the breakages happened with a bent mast and two broken rudders. Hopefully these boats will be back on the water in full force tomorrow.
Tomorrows plan is for 4 races back to back so we get 8 races completed but with a similar forecast to the last few days it could be a battle. We need to at least complete 1 race to complete a series.
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