But day two started in stellar fashion. With close to 25knots of breeze we had spectacular speed upwind. We combined that with a great moment in the first race, where we were the first to tack into a 20degree lifter, while every one else was locked with each other after the start. We took that lift and never looked back, leading from start to finish. In the second race, we had a conservative first beat but our boat speed and good judge of layline saw us again reach the first mark in first place. However, we messed up the spi set, immediately costing us two places in this close SB3 sailing. We managed to get one place back next upwind, finishing 2nd. Last race was more of the same, where we came 2nd to the first mark but again messed up the first spi set and dropping to 5th. From there we could manage to climb up only to 4th but with one team ahead of us DSQ'ing afterwards, we got 3 points for that race
Day three started with the remnants of a storm that passed over at night. As a result the normal see breeze did not develop fully, giving us about 10knots of shifty winds. Furthermore, the wind was very patchy on the course, making it very difficult tactically. We managed rather well, finishing the day with two 3's and a 4th. One of the races where we finished 3rd, things were really close up until the last downwind. As shown in the picture, we were very close to 1st and 2nd (the two yellow spinnakers on the left of the picture) and could manage to go below them with good downwind speed and angle. While we thought that we were in a very good position to stop them from gybing, the wind gods had other plans. There came a gust from the windward, that the two boats got full advantage of, leaving us in their dust. We never got that gust and were in such a hole that we got almost overtaken by the fourth...
That evening, when the results sheet came up, we all realized how close racing really was. The first four boats were all within 2 points. We were placed 3rd but with another day and three more races scheduled that didn't mean much...The last day was bound to be a big one.
It started without wind. But by noon, the sea breeze had developed, this time towards south-west, rather than the usual north-west. We (or at least I) were a little stressed, because with the wind around 10 knots it was not particularly the best conditions for us, or at least that was how I thought. To my surprise, and thanks to Michele's tuning we had great boat speed. We did not combine it with good tactics though on the first beat of the first race, going to left while all went to right. Still, we did not loose much and rounded the first mark right behind the main group of 6-7 boats. Downwind, it was Cristian's turn to pull us forward with good spi handling and we rounded right in the pack to second beat. Then, I stayed to the left again, keeping a close eye on the fleet. We took each lefty gust to come back to the fleet and slowly but surely we got ahead and catched right up with the leader. We rounded the top mark 3rd and hold on to that position till the finish. GREAT! NO NOT REALLY! WE WERE OCS!
Such a shame. Making it even worse, we were probably not over early at the start but about 20-30 sec before the start and got OCS due to 1min rule. At that point, things did not look good because our rivals finished 1st, 3rd, and 4th respectively. We looked through the points and seen that we would need to win if there would be only one race, which could be the case with 4 o'clock being the last start limit.
At this point, the wind had picked up and it looked as if left side of the course was clearly advantaged. So, we got ready for a windward-end start and decided to tack as early as possible. Apparently, everybody had a similar strategy because boats piled up next to the committee boat. Cleverly, we went underneath this pack and basically stopped the entire fleet going down and accelerating. We went down with 10sec to go, reached for speed and then started leaving the whole pack in our dust and to windward. We tacked after two boat lengths, with two other boats that were right to leeward and windward to us. These two pulled ahead of us as we sailed a long port tack and so we rounded the first mark and eventually the downwind mark in third (shown on picture). During the first beat, I had realized that while the general tendency was for the wind to shift to right (making the left side favorable), the gusts usually came from the left, giving small lifts on port tack. I based the tactics on the second beat on this observation and always kept windward of the boats ahead. Slowly, with every gust, we pulled winward and forward, eventually passing the two and building up a good lead. From there we stayed strong to take the bullet!
The win gave us big morale and we thought the second place, but at shore we learned that it was good only for 3rd. The first and second were tied on 21 points, and we had 22. The fortnight second, team Bravi, had dropped to 4th on 24 points. Without the OCS, or with one discard we would have been the Italian Champions....But, no regrets, it was a close series and all four teams could have won. We could have had few races gone better but so could the other teams probably. So, at the end we were contentissimo, as seen here:
Next year though, we will be there more stronger...
posted by Orkun
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