Panama Jack second in Flicker Cup

by Garth Ellingham on 2 Sep 2008 >br>Garth Ellingham reports from the Panama Jack team on the final day of the Ficker Cup in Long Beach:

Going into the final day of racing we were tied in first place with Brian Angel. As this regatta was only two round robins and had no semis and finals we knew that the title would be decided on who beat who in the last round robin.

We started the day with two confident wins and then suffered a close loss to Chris Van Tol. The next race was against Brian Angel and we knew that whoever won this race won the entire regatta. Going into the race we had a game plan to get a windward start and get to the right hand side. Our pre start was strong and when the gun went we had achieved our plan however it was judged that both boats were over the line when the gun went and both had to return behind the line before starting.

During this process the right hand side had become even more desirable but it was very light conditions and when we went to return behind the line we couldn't lay the boat end of the start line. This meant we couldn't get to the right hand shift first as Brian just managed to lay the boat end. This effectively cost us the race as although we kept the race close, the big right hand shift had made the the race a bit of a one way track with Brian winning the race and the regatta.

We'd like to congratulate Brian and his team for sailing a really clean regatta. For us it was a great week of learning how to match race in a much bigger boat than we were used to and all things considering we sailed really well.

Today we fly back to NZ and have one day of rest and then start our next regatta the NZ Nations Cup Qualifier.

At this stage special thanks need to be mentioned to Scotty Dickson for letting us train against him (stealing his tricks) and helping us find crew for the event. Also to Stefan Goldwater of Widex and the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron for their ongoing support of our team.

Thanks heaps see you all back in NZ