Sunday FUN day!

Wow!

 Awesome sailing weather today for all the Manukau clubs, if you missed out, then that was a bit silly!

Hot, fine sunny weather, and wind between about 8 and 20 knots, which built slowly throughout the day. We also had beautifully flat water, although we stayed in the river, rather than venturing out into the open.

At Weymouth we had our first trailer yacht match up, between Rob in the Quicksilver, another Rob in the Beachcomber, and Aaron in the Cherry.

In the lighter winds earlier in the day, the Quicksilver had the best pace, as the beachcomber struggled to get any upwind speed. It didn't matter tho, because the first part of the day was spent taking lots of prospective members out for joyrides.

A little later, the Cherry arrived on the scene. In around ten knots of wind, all three boats seemed quite evenly matched once the beachcomber guys got it sorted a bit. The breeze started to build, and without the extra bodies, both Robs started to struggle in the breeze, and soon had smaller headsails up.

The Cherry, with its small rig, was just coming into its element, and upwind showed the way, even cracking a plane briefly, with just slightly eased sheets, while sailing upwind!! Around Shark Island, the lead was maybe 100metres. Coming back downwind was another story, as the quicksilver's big rig pushed her back into the action pretty fast, closing the gap down to around a boatlength. At the finish, the Cherry just managed to hang on for the win.

The second race, which turned into a cruise, started out looking promising, especially for us, as we bore away onto a reach and instantly the boat started to plane. Sadly this only lasted a few seconds, before we settled back to displacement speed, where again the bigger rig on the Quicksilver allowed rob to pull ahead.

This proved what we'd always thought, that the quicksilver would be faster in the light stuff, and the cherry would gain the advantage in a breeze.  It also probably proves that the handicaps for the two classes are quite accurate, as they put the Quicksilver as marginally faster.