Sailweek has Another Race and Another Winner

Another team has come out on top during Sailweek. It's like they are taking turns in the PHRF 3 fleet. Tof Nicoll-Griffith and Crisis were beating the fleet in the recent Shark Canadian Championship. They also edged out Peter Rahn's Shark team on Eclipse which starred during the first Tuesday Good Neighbours Series. Then, Jin Frati's Shark pretty much ran away with the Beaconsfield Annual Regatta which are also the opening bouts of the week we call Sailweek. The next round for Sailweek was Tuesday evening and that race was canceled with the threat of electrical storms on the course. Last night, the racing resumed, and it was a very nice, light northeast wind that sustained itself throughout the evening. So who dominated last night. Another Shark. The latest winner, Vo2 Max.

Not only did they win the race, they pulled away from the fleet and stayed well ahead for the entire race. A number of Sharks and John Linton's Tanzer 22 mixed it up in the front, but Vo2 Max was so far ahead they essentially sailed there own race for the evening. Some speculated that they dug deep to the left on the first windward leg, heading to shore, deeper than anyone else.

Bravo to John Linton's team on Encore Une Fois for leading the pack after Vo2 Max. They fought off Jin Frati's Blue Shark and Tof's Crisis to hold down 2nd place. Kudos to the Fichten's Silver Phantom who also placed highly in the fleet last night. Jake, Cathy and Bruce now seem to be getting their newly acquired Shark moving well, and are moving back into familiar territory in the head pack.

On Mainsail, we were pleased with our progress. We are certainly not a threat to the top dawgs. Nevertheless, we are getting incrementally better and moving our boat speed and game along to compete well with the boats we consider better but approachable. My primary concern was to be right on the start line when the gun went off. In light wind, if I were to allow other sails to blanket us again, it would have been the kiss of death. It is a dilemna I have been familiar with, and I was determined not to let it happen to us last night. So, with a little less than a minute to go, I plunked the boat right on the line and rode down a bit till the gun went off. Like VO2 Max we kept left, and I think it helped. We did tack away about 3/4 up the windward leg, and may not have had quite as much pressure after that. We had a pretty good race, although boats we beat over the start, like Ketchup and Silver Phantom still managed to clobber us in the end. We fared well against many of the other Sharks. However, it was definitely a very nice, light but consistent wind suitable to the Tanzer 22s. So, not only did the T22 Encore Une Fois do very well, a hearty cheer has to be sent out to the T22 team Sorceress which capitalized on that and sailed very ably to place highly.

I'm not sure what happened in the other fleets, so I look forward to seeing the results when they come out. I can say it was pleasant to see boats we don't see often in our usual Tuesday and Thursday racing.. Being a Wednesday, the Lightnings were on the race course, and so were RStLYC boats. The quick boat out there has to be the J80 sailed by Peter Mcbride's crew.

Congrats to Don, his daughter on foredeck, and Nick, the killers on VO2 Max! See you all out there tonight for another go!