Monday, 30 July 2007
Tough RORC Channel Race With More Success
With gale force winds expected in the early hours of Sunday morning this year's Channel Race was promising to be a tough one. RORC gave out the course at 16h00 on Friday and we were all very relieved that the course was 140nm which would hopefully see the boats finishing between 0300 and 0400 on Sunday morning.
With the exception of Puma Logic all the other Sailing Logic boats had excellent starts. Puma was one second early for the start and had to return to the start area and started nearly five minutes late!
The course took all the teams West out of the Solent in a steadily building Westerly breeze. Bongani led class 2 out of the Solent and were looking very good. Lion was the first of the sailing Logic boats out of the Solent in class 1 closely followed by Puma Logic who did well to claw back the lost time.
There was a long hard beat in 18 to 20 knots of breeze to Weymouth followed by a down wind sleigh ride to a mark due south of Selsy Bill. Pink Panther reported speeds of sixteen knots and all the boats had an awesome kite run with consistently good boat speeds in double figures.
Bongani led the Sailing Logic Armada around the first mark with a comfortable lead in class 2 closely followed Puma Logic who were the 2nd boat around in class 1. The other Sailing Logic teams were in hot pursuit and very close behind.
The wind increased to over thirty knots for the final thirty mile beat to the finish. Code 3 jibs and reefed mains in very cold conditions was the order of the day. Most of the teams had not slept as they kept focused on boat speed and sail changes. Exhaustion set in for many as everyone pushed to their limits and beyond. It was a very tough race and really separated the men from the boys. Indeed, rumour has it that some of the other boats have now pulled out of the Fastnet as a result of the challenging conditions!!
At 0340 Puma Logic was the first Sailing Logic boat to finish with a superb 2nd place in class 1 which now puts them in a comfortable 2nd place in the championships. Even better was to follow as Bongani came in just over thirty minutes later to receive the news from the race officer that they were the fist boat to finish in class 2. A tense time followed as the team awaited the official results. Bongani needed to beat the slower boats in class by 45 minutes to still beat them on corrected time!
Pink Panther then finished just before 0630 in a superb 8th place followed by Lion one minute later in 9th place. Jaguar finished in a very credible 14th place just half an hour later.
Just after 1100 the results were published! Bongani had done it, with a massive lead of nearly 45 minutes on corrected time. What a result! Well done guys. Keep it up and we now look forward to continued success on the Fastnet.
With gale force winds expected in the early hours of Sunday morning this year's Channel Race was promising to be a tough one. RORC gave out the course at 16h00 on Friday and we were all very relieved that the course was 140nm which would hopefully see the boats finishing between 0300 and 0400 on Sunday morning.
With the exception of Puma Logic all the other Sailing Logic boats had excellent starts. Puma was one second early for the start and had to return to the start area and started nearly five minutes late!
The course took all the teams West out of the Solent in a steadily building Westerly breeze. Bongani led class 2 out of the Solent and were looking very good. Lion was the first of the sailing Logic boats out of the Solent in class 1 closely followed by Puma Logic who did well to claw back the lost time.
There was a long hard beat in 18 to 20 knots of breeze to Weymouth followed by a down wind sleigh ride to a mark due south of Selsy Bill. Pink Panther reported speeds of sixteen knots and all the boats had an awesome kite run with consistently good boat speeds in double figures.
Bongani led the Sailing Logic Armada around the first mark with a comfortable lead in class 2 closely followed Puma Logic who were the 2nd boat around in class 1. The other Sailing Logic teams were in hot pursuit and very close behind.
The wind increased to over thirty knots for the final thirty mile beat to the finish. Code 3 jibs and reefed mains in very cold conditions was the order of the day. Most of the teams had not slept as they kept focused on boat speed and sail changes. Exhaustion set in for many as everyone pushed to their limits and beyond. It was a very tough race and really separated the men from the boys. Indeed, rumour has it that some of the other boats have now pulled out of the Fastnet as a result of the challenging conditions!!
At 0340 Puma Logic was the first Sailing Logic boat to finish with a superb 2nd place in class 1 which now puts them in a comfortable 2nd place in the championships. Even better was to follow as Bongani came in just over thirty minutes later to receive the news from the race officer that they were the fist boat to finish in class 2. A tense time followed as the team awaited the official results. Bongani needed to beat the slower boats in class by 45 minutes to still beat them on corrected time!
Pink Panther then finished just before 0630 in a superb 8th place followed by Lion one minute later in 9th place. Jaguar finished in a very credible 14th place just half an hour later.
Just after 1100 the results were published! Bongani had done it, with a massive lead of nearly 45 minutes on corrected time. What a result! Well done guys. Keep it up and we now look forward to continued success on the Fastnet.
posted by Sailing Logic at 2:23 PM
