Star Sailors League Finals - Top three in a world of their own - Day 2

by Paul Cayard on 2 Dec 2016 Four races were held today outside Montegue Bay off the east end of New Providence Island. The wind was easterly at 14 knots for the first race dropping to 7 knots for the fourth race. There was a 15 degree persistent shift to the southeast as the day went on.

Josh and I didn’t have a great day. We didn’t seem to have speed upwind and I am not going to win the sail fanning contest downwind against the Laser and Finn Sailors. In this regatta, it is open season on pumping, rocking and ouching so it is like a gymnastics competition downwind.

Our worst race is a 17th yet we slid in the overall standings down to 19th. The discard kicked in today and we don’t have any top 10 races. Hopefully there will be enough wind tomorrow and on Friday to race five more races and finish the schedule. We are just four points out of 12th so plenty of vertical movement is possible for us.

We took our mast down tonight after sailing to check it and found a few things slightly off so we adjusted it for more power and put it back up in the dark. We will use our light air mainsail tomorrow also.

Robert Scheidt took over the lead in the series today. He and Mark Mendelblatt seem to be the fastest to me. Obviously they are sailing well too. Diego Negri of Italy has good speed and is in second overall. The top three are in a league of their own so far.