February 2nd, 2020
We wrapped up Day 3 of the Oceania Championships sitting in 9th overall. We didn’t have the smoothest of days, but we had a very good learning day and finished on a high note.
We were the second fleet to race today with the guys sailing first. We launched around 2pm and headed out to our course. The wind was up and down and quite shifty, so we knew we were in for a challenging day.
The first race started okay. We didn’t have the best start, but sailed well upwind and rounded the top mark in the top 7. We had a good downwind and held our position. On the second upwind, we decided to sail through one puff to get to another and it ended up not being quite the right play for the moment and we ended up losing a few of boats, moving us back to 12th in the race.
The next race was a little crazy at the start. A huge puff came rolling into the start line at about 5 seconds to go and we were caught a little unbalance and ended up not being able to accelerate on time. It was really frustrating because Paris had done a great job of setting up our hole to start in. We ended up tacking out and starting on port behind the fleet. We sailed quite well and were right with the top 10 at the first mark. Unfortunately, we called a late gybe set and ended up capsizing. This put us back in the fleet and we were trying to play catch up, but when the fleet is that close together and you capsize on the first lap it is very hard to catch back up. We ended up beating one boat and finished 19th.
The final race, things came together. We had a great start and felt fast. We sailed well and rounded the top mark in 3rd. We rounded the leeward mark in second with the Argentinians right on our hip. As we sailed we got lifted and they lifted off of us a little more. We sailed close on the upwind and rounded right behind them at the top mark. We had a good battle downwind, but couldn’t quite get them and ended up finishing the race in 3rd and a high note for the end of the day.
Overall, we had frustrating moments, but in those moments we took valuable lessons forward. It’s hard when those moments happen, but sometimes those frustrating experiences are very good to have.
Tomorrow is the final day of racing and we are scheduled to race first! Although we are currently 9th overall, the points are very close within the top 10 and we are only 8 points out of 5th place! We have 3 races scheduled and again the forecast is for good wind. You can check out the results here.
Anna & Paris
Henken | Tobias Sailing 