Cape Town Race Week cont...

With Yolo going into the last day in the lead, it was Game on.. playing a game of points..

Race 5 -Nice conditions, if a bit light.. Good start, but got slighly boxed.. but made up a bit on the downwinds.. In the end a good second place in this race.

Race 6- Nice sailing.. Good racing was had.. with the stopwatch working overtime. A few good maneuvers helped.. Albeit we got kelp caught on the rudder three times, which required removal by hand... In the end Yolo won this race with one second in hand..

Overall a good win for Yolo.. in the biggest class in this regatta,  The regatta and it's sponsors outdid themselves in running a top class shore based activities.. and for our win on Yolo a bottle of Blue Label and a Maserati watch was won.

Abaord for this regatta as follows: Dale, Ian, Sieger, Shane and Cathleen.
Mark on Friday, Nick Leggat on Sat and Sunday and Michael Kavanagh on the Sunday.

Cape Town Race Week 11/12/13/16

Race 1 -Being a late afternoon race, winds were a bit light for the first part of the race which had Yolo hanging in, but sailed the side with the slightly lighter breeze for the first half.. which relegated us to the back of the fleet...

Race 2- Light breeze with a nice swell to work. SW.. Yolo did well to manage a second place in this race.

Race 3-A "middle distance" race using Barker rock as a rounding mark.. Yolo started well and was looking good, while playing the shifts... but got caught on the wrong side of a shift.. which cost distance.. on the downwind though, saw the change in the winds and optimised on this after the roudnign mark and kept it up for the next leg.. giving Yolo a first in this race.

Race 4- The medium distance race.. down to Koeberg and back... perhaps a wait of 15 minutes would have allowed the winds to settle down.. resulting in there being lots of shifts and "whirlies" till half way up the beat when the breeze settled down.. by then Yolo was not in the best position.. but still hanging in there... a downwind leg to Koeberg which was pleasant.. and then a beat back.. on route back the wind shifted to SE and picked up to very strong.. this allowed the bigger boats to benefit

as they were much further up on the course when this happened.. so they needed to sail less distance in the harder breeze.. and were better suited to it...

WED NITE 2nd December 2015

With almost no wind on the start line, coming from the East and a SE windline to the South, the race was started. A struggle to get any speed.. Boats on the bridge(opposite to us) side of the line seemed to have gained an advantage as they had slightly more wind and first to the wind line.. with Yolo struggling in the initial stages, once in the wind, it was game on.. Nice firm SE.. warm wind, flat seas.. great.. Got up to the early 20's before Paarden Island.. On the downwind to Milnerton the wind picked up and touched in the early 30's and then died down to around 20 for the rest of the race.. Yolo made up some distance on the downwind with the freshening breeze, Clean gybe at Milnerton and a fast fetch to a laid mark, followed by a good well played beat back to Harken mark where lots of gains were made... and then final leg to the finish with the finish line on the wind line.. but we had enough speed to make it.. Yolo came second in the race and overall 3rd in the series... which is probably quite concerning as she did not sail three races of which only one was counted as a discard, yet came third.. Which means other boats weren't regular and the fleet size is to small... Hopefully this will be sorted out for the second half of the season. Aboard were: Dale, Ian, Sieger, Cath.