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Race 4

After a windy night - cycled to the dinghy park to rescue my wetsuit from the haliard at 3 am - the wind had dropped in the morning and we sailed to the start in a light breeze.

The start favoured the pin end of the line and Keith and I got a reasonable start on port. We old blokes had a discussion whether to carry on or not, whilst 90 per cent of the fleet went left. 50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong and we found ourselves in the 20th. Christian Ger 471 led the fleet round the top mark but headed too deep, but could trapeze up to the gybemark still first.

The next beats favoured the left side and Christian could control the fleet although the bigguns came closer with increasing wind, while Arthur kept ahead of Andrea. Lars DEN 32 finished 4th with his new Poland built Schappi Contender. He always sails without Cunningham, he believes it is only for children.

In the second start of the day Lars touched the pin mark, Arthur was over the line and went back so I had the best start with Nigel splashing right in my neck. Keith had learned his lesson and rounded the top mark first, followed by Nigel and Chris. Keith gybed first, but at the bottom Nigel, Lars and I were close together.

Lars got stuck with his tiller extension under his life jacket when he tacked to control the rest of the fleet. Imagine his shouting when he capsized!

Chris took his chance to round first followed by Nigel.
Soeren came from nowhere and I had to work hard to control him on the run. The wind increased to about 17 knots and competitors from the left hand side of the course found themselves behind Giovanni and Chris who came from the right. Arthur had recovered from his early start and finished ahead of Giovanni, Nigel, Andrea and Chris.

To sum up, this was a real good sailing day.

Results, 5 races, 1 discard:

1 AUS BRETT, ARTHUR 5.00 pts, 1 3 1 2 1
2 ITA BONEZZI, ANDREA 8.00 pts, 2 1 2 3 4
3 GBR WALBANK, NIGEL 13.00 pts, 4 2 4 7 3
4 ITA BONZIO, GIOVANNI 19.00 pts, 3 10 5 9 2
5 DEN ANDREASEN, SOREN 24.00 pts, 11 7 3 5 9
6 GER BRANDT, CHRISTIAN 27.00 pts, 10 9 7 1 11
7 GBR PAUL, KEITH 27.00 pts, 5 6 10 10 6
8 GER HARPPRECHT, JOCHIM 27.00 pts, 6 8 6 8 7
9 DEN SCHRODER, LARS 28.00 pts, 8 4 12 4 DNF
10 GBR MITCHELL, CHRIS 28.00 pts, 9 5 9 13 5