Hugh Styles at SPA - day 1

British Tornado hope says he is disappointed by downwind performance

Today was the first day of racing for all classes. The day dawned with clear blue skies and sunshine, a great day's sailing in prospect. The forecast was for moderate winds, but to start with the wind was very light and fickle. Our start time was scheduled for 2pm with three races scheduled. We were sharing our course area with the Star and Yngling keelboat classes, which made it rather hectic at mark roundings with all the different classes converging.

Fortunately for us by the time that we were on our way out for racing the wind had begun to increase in strength. We started the first race on time, with the wind from the North North East and about 7 or 8 knots. We started well towards the left hand end of the line. We were one of the leading boats out to the left hand side of the race course, we did well and were second on rounding the windward mark. The downwind leg went well and we maintained our position, but didn't have the best bottom mark rounding. The next beat was not quite as good as our first and we rounded the last upwind mark in fourth place. The last downwind leg was disappointing as we had to avoid a big spectator boat which dropped us some distance on third place, but we maintained fourth place to the finish.

Race 2 started with more wind than the first race and more towards the north than during the first race. We started at the right hand end of the line, and were in the pack of the leading boats half way up the first beat. Unfortunately we ended up on the wrong position at the top of the beat rounding the first mark about 12th. We sailed well on the downwind leg and pulled through a couple of places. We sailed well on the next upwind picking off a few more boats. On the final downwind maintained our position to finish eighth.

The last race we started well again at the right hand end of the start and sailed a course up the middle of the windward leg however those who had gone to the right hand side had gained. We rounded between eighth and tenth and began the climb towards the front of the fleet. We picked off a few boats each leg and just clinched fourth place coming into the finish line, crossing the line just a few slender inches before Rob Wilson another British boat.

I'm not greatly pleased with our downwind speed. We have a few tweaks to try for tomorrow to improve our downwind speed. With this we should then be far more comfortable as we can then attack more on the downwind legs. In the overall standings we are lying third overall after the three races. We are pleased but see plenty more scope for tomorrows races.
Here's looking forward to tomorrow and some good high speed racing.