Races on Feb 15 and 16.
Boats have been out practicing this week. Very light winds, 6 to 7 kts.
https://youtu.be/SSod-aIETJg
Races on Feb 15 and 16.
Boats have been out practicing this week. Very light winds, 6 to 7 kts.
https://youtu.be/SSod-aIETJg
If they lift like that in 6 - 7 knots wind, what will they do in a normal sailing breeze of 20 knots or so. The prospect would be frightening. Well, maybe not to them!
Mike
Nothing works on an old boat, except the skipper.
The boats are designed to sail at up to 50kts!
They do have smaller wingsails and jibs for stronger breezes.
Bit more breeze yesterday
https://youtu.be/FAOP2svKJgg
Was great fun to watch today, especially once the breeze kicked in a bit for the second and third races. Will be back out there again tomorrow...
Aussies really kicked arse! Even with a shocking start in race 5, giving away about a 20 second lead, they were back in front by the bottom gate!
Surprising how much one team could dominate in a strict one design series.
Good racing though, a little more breeze would have been nice, they were "only " hitting mid thirty knot speeds. In around 10kts wind...
Given that Slingsby and Outridge have way more time on the boats than anyone else, its not really that suprising those are the two leading boats, is it?
I think max wind speed was 14 knots and max boat speed 34 knots. Pretty incredible really....
It was surprising to me at least, how quickly the Australian team recovered from the poor start in race 5. Against even Outridge, who was the favourite, pre race.
And the 2 boat match race was a bit of a miss match race.
More like a slaughter, almost reminiscent of that time the Kiwis raced a 130' mono against a 60' cat.
For a one design series, yes the difference surprised me.
Meh, I don't really like match racing anyway. Outridge lost it on the start - though I didn't see who had the preferred side into the box. Once Slingsby could push him up at the first mark, it was a foregone conclusion and unlikely to change.
Given the crew on Japan vs Australia - I think there's a danger the whole series will be a whitewash.,
Why isn't there an NZ crew?