Round Robben Island Race - Sat, 20th October 2012

With a Black South Easter Blowing, the fleet was reduced as most sailors chose not to race. Nevertheless we decided to take it on.. At the starting area there were gusts in the 30 odd knots.. It was a downwind start, pursuit race.. We started with a full main up, on time, lay off and hoisted our kite. It was a good hoist, we started to sail as we quickly tried to settle the boat down. We were sailing quite deep and must have got a gust in the late 30's with a lot of South in it.. this caused us to Chinese Gybe in style. It took us a long time to recover and recover the kite. We assessed our damage and realized we could not use the kite again. so we two sail reached our way down the course. We rounded Robben Island and tried to look for a SWesterly on the other side of Robben ISland with winds around 17-20knots which we picked up but then it swung back.. the final part of the beat had it gusting upto 35 knots again.. We ended up midfleet.. Aboard were: Ian, Sieger, Riaan Brits and Dale. We broke our windex, Spinnkaer pole fitting and bridle, blew a barbour hauler block and tore the kite.