10 boats out all greeted by a torrential downpour which hampered the boat prep, but this cleared away to leave sunshine for the remainder of the afternoon.
Wind SW 14 – 16 knots and fluky gusts with a rising tide shortly after the start.
Course 65 was selected, between 26 to MYA 1 a couple of times and then back to the club.
A good start with the fleet was spread across the start line, the south shore boats, Ubique and Hercules Hound getting the better of the rest of the fleet, most with kites up, but soon dropped them as we left Heartbreak.
As we reached Gillingham reach Hercules Hound had started to break away with the peloton split in to two groups, namely Muffin, Ubique, Intermezzo, Knot Rushing Moonshine and Loose Knots, with Black Jack, Little Angel and La Rive in the next group.
As we turned 26 and went on a run, bags up and the fleet split again, some gyb’d on to port and some just bore off.
Somewhere over by 24 Muffin’s helm decided to abandon ship leaving Catherine to deal with the boat which regrettably tipped over, apparently twice and they retired. Apparently La Rive also picked up a Shark point and also retired.
As we got to MYA 1 to turn onto the beat Hercules Hound was well ahead, but Ubique, Intermezzo, Moonshine and Loose Knots all started to battle back up to 26 swapping places and this continued for the second lap. Moonshine and Loose Knots stayed in the channel on the second lap while the rest tacked up the shore, this paid off putting Moonshine into 3rd closely behind Ubique, with Intermezzo, and Loose Knots following.
Once we turned 26 to Starboard on to the reach, but with the tide the places remained pretty much the same.
A good race, a well chosen course for the conditions with lots of place swapping and the shark trophy is wide open now.