JOG Nab Tower Race - 28th March 2009
Crew PJ plus Oliver Overstall, Nick Tilt, Tom Gadsden, Ed Lock, David Dyer, Ant Garratt, Diana Cottrell, James Burbidge, Jonathan Burbidge.
Start 0840 off JOG line Cowes / Gurnard Cardinal Buoy
With fresh winds at 20 to 30 kts and a strong East going tide, In X Celsis made a stunning start being first over the line and sailing fast.
With keen tactical and navigation data from Tom Gadsden, we hoisted the small heavy weather spinnaker and headed the fleet Eastwards with just three larger and faster boats ahead at the forts. Keen helming kept us on a course direct to the Nab Tower where spinnaker recovery and a hoist of the No. 4 headsail plus first reef put us back onto the course Westward back to Cowes. With a call for a tack from the navigator, a long beat North took good advantage of the tide now going West and a single tack saw us beating directly through the forts and making good ground against the rest of the fleet.
Shaking out the mainsail reef passing Osborne Bay proved time consuming before a fast fetch to the finish and third place on corrected time. On corrected time, we were less than 5 minutes behind the winning boat in our class and less than 2 minutes behind the second boat.
So well done the crew. A good effort by everyone.
Now we know where we can be in this fleet and what we need to do better and faster to get to the front!
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