Mid May, temperature not yet past the dizzying height of 12 degrees, and a Sunday morning of heavy showers. 4 boats were out, hoisting sails as there was a bit of sun, but no wind – not a breath. Never to be defeated, the boats cast off and dutifully, the wind filled in from the north east (although the forecast had said west). It picked up quickly, so on the water RO in Dione set course L1, ZGCAZ.
The line favoured a pin start, and all but Circe went that way, but the shore side proved to be the right place to be, and at the first mark, Circe took the lead followed by Catriona, Dione and Athene.
Across to C, it was a tight course for a spinnaker but all boats put them up in what was quite a fresh breeze by now. Strangely, after gybing round C and heading to A, it was still quite tight for the spinnaker, so a bit more north in the wind.
Dione and Catriona were exchanging places quite a bit this afternoon, and it has to be noted that by the end of the race, Dione had overtaken Catriona 3 times, and Catriona equally overtook Dione twice. There were some spinnaker problems as well, notably that Dione managed to hoist the spinnaker twice with a clew in place of the head, and the spinnaker askew, but she kept catching up despite the problems. On the second round, the wind was easing a bit, and downwind to A Dione made a lot of ground on Circe, leading to some covering and panic in Circe on the final upwind leg, but in the end the finishing order was
1 Circe, 2 Dione, 3 Catriona, 4 Athene.
PS Halcyone followed round the course and it was good to see that the rigging is now sorted.
