Day Two was another awesome Lake Como day, bright sunshine, slightly cooler than yesterday and a steady 18 knots of wind right on cue before the start of race one. 1st race of the day I was having a shocker, almost capsized to windward trying to adjust mast rotation from the wire - luffed the boat by accident. Was sailing windsurfer style on the windward hull for a few seconds, managed to get enough control back to bring the boat down Mark (Stealth GBR555) and Geert (Blade NED9) were very close - close enough that I could see them laughing! I kept on making mistakes all through this race but somehow managed to stay in touch with Mark and Geert. We had a photo finish at the end, round the final mark, Geert had the inside line and called room on me, and I had the inside line on Mark and called room on him (I had got ahead of mark by catching with on port approaching the buoy). We went across the line with each boat overlapped by just 1/2 a boat length. Downwind runs were excellent today, fully powered up.
Race 5 went a bit better for me, not so many mistakes and my better boatspeed to windward carried me home ahead of Mark, Geert and Eric. With glimpses of Hans (Raptor NED111) ahead. Race 6 ended in disaster for me, by port rudder snapped in two, reaching on one hull from the windward to the spreader mark - instant capsize and end of the days racing for me - lucky it happened in the final race of the day.
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| Missing something.....? |
Luckily for me, Falcon Marine's EU rep,
theboatshop.be was here at the regatta (Gill de Bruyne sailing on Falcon BEL666) and replaced my rudder from his spares and at no cost. Special thanks to him and Matt McDonald at
Falcon Marine for getting me back on the water. Matt and Gill have given me no end of invaluable support and advice.
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| Hans stroking my rudder.............. |
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