With Natalie’s shoulder not yet repaired, Robert Stevenson joined Tom for the Royal Southampton YC West Princessa Race. The A5 didn’t go up exactly cleanly first time, but once it was up Mostly Harmless quickly recovered ground on a shy spinnaker reach to the Ryde Sands eastern post, before losing a bit by being slightly more cautious than some of the fleet rounding Bembridge Ledge and consequently requiring a tack to make West Princessa Buoy. However, MH found turbo on the white sail reach back to the Ryde Sands and pulled out a comfortable lead over all the boats rating lower on the fetch to the finish. But, rather than protect our position, we freed off too soon for the finish at the Brambles and were caught out a by a heading shift in a breeze building to over 25 knots that allowed boats that had been well behind to make the line while we had to put in a tack. But for the mistake late in the race, a great day’s sailing with good trimming from Robert supporting hot boat speed.
Would we have made this mistake with Natalie on board? Probably not!
Big Foot, who’d been thirty boat lengths behind off Norris, passes ahead approaching the finish line at the Brambles
Mostly Harmless finally crosses the line, 3 minutes on corrected time behind the overall winner