State Championship heats

The weekend of the State championship was upon us and we had a convincing lead going into the last of the heats. Unfortunately we choked slightly and couldn’t seem to get a wind shift in our favor. The breeze was a NE 8-12 knots which had some big shifts in it. Our result for the day was 3rd and 5th. This give away our lead and we were dead level with Craig Mann’s Impact. A lot of thinking was done that night on what we had done wrong with a big day ahead of us on the Sunday.

On Sunday we definitely improved on our performance from the day before with a massive gain in boat handling and tactics. We consistently put the boat in the right position on the course picking pressure and lifts. The breeze was still out of the NE and shifty but there was less remanent swell around. Our result was 2, 1, 2 which was enough to claim the state championship. We were very happy with this result and hope to build on this in the future.

Getting back to normal

After competing in a national title there was a bit of a relaxed preparation for the State championships at MOFSC. Especially with the results obtained so far in the championship. In the lead up to the states Vita Brevis was sailed twice at MOFSC.

Out first time back in the boat at MOFSC saw us competing against Trevor Date and the OTB classes in 3 short windward leeward’s. The races were extremely short lasting just over 10 minutes for the sharpie but much longer for smaller boats like the Optimists. The breeze was an 8-12knt South Westerly. The race was good to shake the cobwebs out as there was a lot of boat handling required in such short races. Our Results were 1, OCS, 1 after we broke the start in race 2 and chose to keep sailing.

The last time we sailed before the states we sailed in a championship heat with the MOFSC OTB class including some 505’s sailed by very experienced keelboat sailors. After breaking the start we quickly gybed and restarted the race. This gybe proved to be a winner sending us off to the beach with pressure. We managed to carry the last of the fading land breeze halfway to the first wing mark where until the sea breeze set in closing the door for downwind sailing for the rest of the fleet. This allowed us to hold a convincing lead for the rest of the race and Win. We were satisfied with the performance and were confident in our preparation for the state championship heats to come

Youtube Summary

View the action from thr 67th Sharpie Nationals on youtube