Race 21st May (auth Monkey B)
A light westerly breeze greeted 6 squibs on the line, or almost on the line, at the start.
The Dragons and Sonatas had chosen the Southern side of the river as the favoured route
and 5 Squibs followed on course 71. White Knuckles, Black Mark, Winsome, Legend and Water Rat gathered by St Mary’s Island to take advantage of the apparent wind and head off up tide in the shallows. On Monkey Business we decided to throw a dummy move to confuse the opposition and engaged in some light spinnaker wrestling 20 yards back from the start line. The plan was to let everyone else drift ahead at which point we would launch our attack on the north side of the river where the wind was strongest and go tearing past the fleet to be in the front by the first mark at buoy 23. And that is what happened – by quite a distance. Our efforts were assisted by Black Mark grounding after an ambitious move to undertake Monkey Business (legendary holders of the Mudlark trophy) by Hoo Island when we had less than a foot of water under us. Black Mark freed themselves to join the rest of the fleet in the secondary race forming behind us. After 23 it was back up river with the tide to 27/26 and down again to 22. The gap closed somewhat which caused some consternation on Monkey Business and renewed vigilance on staying in front, but we held on to the lead all the way round and crossed the line with Legend snapping at our heels a couple of minutes behind. The rest of the fleet followed with Black Mark, and Winsome next, followed by Water Rat and White Knuckles in their own race for last place in the next 15 minutes.
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