The rain stopped and the sun came out providing us with a picturesque day of racing today for Hyeres SOF. Southwesterly winds filled across the racecourse starting around 1000 and built to a steady 12-17 knots bearing about 250. The Hyeres peninsula of salt ponds juts out into the Mediterranean making any breeze from any westerly direction offshore and flatwater. Only a short chop was able to pick up under the clear blue skies and great conditions.
The Laser course is tucked quite close under the peninsula with our windward marks only about a quarter mile off the flat coastline. We waited for the Radial women to finish up their two races this morning before we headed out and sailed two of our own starting around one o’clock in the afternoon. With steady wind, there were fewer general recalls than yesterday and we got off with only a few boats on the course side (OCS) of the starts.
Smaller waves enabled me to have better speed off the line and up the first beats today. Compounded by slightly shiftier, brainier conditions I was able to scramble into a couple of top ten-ish finishes today taking a 11, 9. I was never quicker than the top ten or fifteen guys upwind, but I was able to take a couple boats on each of the reaches and runs.
Tomorrow is rumored and forecasted to be quite windy. The debate around many of the boatparks is whether some of the fleets will even venture out to race in more than 25 knots. Of course there isn’t any chatter like that in Laserland, where regardless of how windy it is, I’m sure we’ll be sent out as guinea pigs to see if the more fragile classes might be able to handle it. Tomorrow will be the last day of the qualifying series after which the fleets will be separated into Gold, Silver (and Bronze for the Lasers). I know a couple of people in particular looking to get some more races off to compensate for some shocking scores in yesterday’s sailing. From a training perspective, I’m happy to get as many races in as we can regardless of the conditions. More to come from CampbellSailing.com. Full results at: http://sof.ffvoile.net/results/laser.htm
