Big day in Nassau

Andy Beadsworth reports on the final day's racing of the Star Western Hemisphere regatta

After early concerns that racing would be cancelled due to excess wind the fleet left the dock at the usual time.

With winds 20-25 knots we were in for a big day. The wind direction had clocked 25 degrees to the right. We opted to stick with our MXR std set up rather than going back to the heavy air mainsail we struggled with earlier in the week.

We chose for a start to leeward of the pack. We got off well just to leeward of Reynolds and had good speed. The consensus of the fleet was that the right would pay. Cayard started at the pin and tacked across after about five mins crossing one boat length behind us. We tacked up on his hip and dragged into the right hand corner. It was good practice for us and a good learning opportunity. He is probably the most consistent fast boat on the track. We basically matched him for nearly 10 minutes with a 30 second period when we lost 1-2 lengths in a big chunk. Operator error, but asically we were going well.

The right came in big and we rounded the windward mark sixth just behind Cayard. However over the course of the race Cayard got to second and we ended up 10th. He made huge gains on the reaches and we made big losses on the runs. Our losses on the runs were consistent throughout the week - a major point of concern. At the last windward mark we rounded behind Mendelblatt who in the process of bearing away overcooked it, his bear away turning into a full on gybe with him hanging out the back of the boat. Fortunately he ejected before the boom came across, potentially causing serious injury.

Struby his crew did a great job gybing the runners unaware of the situation until he noted they were sailing a bit high, only to look back to see his skipper a few lengths back waving and shouting, "Hey!!!! Come back" Struby managed to tack the boat back pick up Mendaelblatt and then sail a blistering run to not only pass us but to put nearly 100m on us by the finish...

In the last race we started on the committee boat and were the first to tack to the right. We were struggling for height against the boats inside us, early signs were not looking good. However the right came in good again and we were among the top few. At the windward mark we were approaching on the hip of a group from the left. However a starboard tacker got to the leeward boat and they all started tacking. We were in a tough position. We couldn't dip and as it would happen there wasn't room to tack into leeward. We tried but ended up stopped then going backward fully wrapped round the mark. We would have been fourth if we had made it! If it had gone in the back of the net it would have been a goal, etc.

We gybed out and did our turn and re rounded in the mid teens. The upside was that we were in perfect position to see Prof O'Connell struggling to hold on to his tiller with two hands on the reach. As he started to broach the tiller pulled him off the side deck accelerating the turn into the broach and he executed the perfect roll across the back tank and out of the boat on the leeward side. As per Mendelblatt's crew Ed Peel executed a perfect recovery in difficult conditions.

We passed a few boats on the first reach but then had a couple of refusals at the gybe mark before eventually throwing in to a must gybe manoeuvre. By the leeward mark it had paid off to be in leeward position and we took another couple of boats even after loosing a couple at the gybe mark. A good second beat put us back in the top ten only to lose again on the last run to finish tenth.

Overall we finished 12th and I have to say a little disappointed. However if you look at the effect of the points we lost downwind it translates into three or four places overall, at least! Which we would have been happy with. We made significant improvements in upwind performance and our reaching although not the best was good. We basically finished at the tail end of the good guys in our first windy regatta. It's a good platform to work form. In our initial goal setting, we said we wanted to be the best in the world in
0-10 knots and we just needed to hold our own/be better than average in the heavy air. Our fitness although not a problem could have been better and would have helped. Although I'm not sure there is much you can do to restore feeling into your legs and feet when you tack. They just go numb!! It is a weird sensation when you slide into the boat under the boom and you can't feel your feet.

Our future plan will be to purchase some cheap old second hand masts, go somewhere windy and wavy and go to it. Sounds like heavy air downwind speed might be a fun problem to solve.

We are now packing up 7953 for the last time. Hopefully we will have some news on where we will go from here soon enough.

Cheers.

Andy and Freddie

Results:

Pos	Helm	Crew	Nat	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	Net
1	Paul Cayard	Brian Sharp	USA	2	2	2	2	1	DNS	9
2	John Dane III	Austin Sperry	USA	3	1	6	3	3	DNS	16
3	Rick Merriman	Steve Mitchell	USA	5	11	5	1	6	1	18
4	Mark Mendelblatt	Mark Strube	USA	7	5	1	4	9	2	19
5	Ross Macdonald	Mike Wolfs	CAN	4	4	4	13	4	4	20
6	Andy Horton	Brad Nichol	USA	1	6	7	8	2	7	23
7	Mark Reynolds	Anders Ekstrom	USA	10	9	3	5	8	3	28
8	Howard Shiebler	Hal Haenel	USA	11	3	10	6	5	8	32
9	George Szabo	Eric Monroe	USA	6	8	8	9	13	9	40
10	Augie Diaz	Bob Schofield	USA	12	12	12	11	7	5	47
11	John MacClausland	Brian Fatih	USA	9	7	20	7	15	11	49
12	Andy Beadsworth	David Carr	GBR	8	14	11	10	10	10	49
13	Larry Whipple	Phil Trinter	USA	15	20	14	12	12	6	59
14	Steven Kelly	Bill Holowesko	BAH	20	13	9	21	18	RDG(12)	72
15	Maurice O'Connell	Edmund Peel	IRL	17	18	19	14	11	14	74
16	Brian Cramer	Iain Greensmith	CAN	14	15	17	17	20	RDG(12)	75
17	J. Joseph Bainton	Todd Raynor	USA	21	22	13	15	16	12	77
18	John J. Bainton Jr.	Chris Rogers	USA	13	10	15	16	DNS	DNS	80
19	Bob Teitge	Richard Burgess	USA	24	17	18	19	19	17	90
20	Kevin McNeil	Seth Mininger	USA	22	16	21	20	14	DNF	93
21	Hyde Perce	Kevin Murphy	USA	19	21	DNF	DNS	17	13	96
22	Karl Anderson	Peter Hopple	USA	16	23	16	18	DNF	DNS	99
23	William Fields	Arthur Anosov	USA	23	DNF	22	22	21	DNF	114
24	Jimmie Lowe	Andrew Higgs	BAH	18	19	DNS	DNS	DNS	DNS	115
25	Claude Bonanni	Philip Sinner	USA	25	24	23	23	DNS	DNS	121