Spook the Winner of Bay Race 8
By Jim Fern
It was a light weather race with the breeze out of the south west. No mark X was set so it allowed the use of kites off the start line. Spook started about two thirds of the way down the line and quickly rolled over Jag and Renaissance. Frequent Flyer who was higher on the line and thus had a broader run to Lockyer which was the first mark was slow off the start line. Spook headed directly for Lockyer trailed by Renaissance and Jag. Frequent Flyer took a long time to get under way and then went very high towards Huybers. Spook reached Lockyer well in front and then it became clear: Frequent Flyer must have had the picnic basket on board as they seemed to be heading for Horseshoe but it later transpired that they had an outdated set of instructions and were going the wrong way. This was a shame as it proved to be the end of their day.
After jibing and rounding Hope we had a very pleasant, if cold, shy reach to the St Helena South East buoy. Then came the very real challenge of tacking through the dying and shifting breezes back between Green and St Helena to the start/finish boat to the west of Green. It ended up being a drifting match in which Renaissance closed up to being about 100 m behind Spook after being about 15 mins behind earlier. However, it was a real drifting match and after Spook crossed the line Renaissance took a further frustrating 15 mins (fair, really!) to make the 100m to the line. A very satisfying day for Spook taking the treble with line honours, Performance and OMR handicap wins, a frustrating one for Renaissance having sniffed a better finish several times in the shifting breezes, some satisfaction for Jag finishing under kite in a new north east breeze and spare a thought for Frequent Flyer who certainly took an unintentional flier which did not work at all!
