This year's Yachting Cup at SDYC saw Kraken crewed with a consistent crew of repeat offenders on both days.
Since getting our backsides handed to us at the NOODs we'd made some hardware changes, a new mainsail replaced the oldest main in the fleet, the roller furling was replaced, our mainsheet system got some blockers to prevent the snags that have been plaguing us, the backstay travel was increased.
These changes were aimed at fixing some atrocious pointing ability during the NOODs, which had translated to us constantly digging out of the fleet. The new headstay allowed greater mast rake, as well as reducing weight, being more flexible and more aerodynamic. The main has shape all through it.
Our pointing was indeed improved. In the fleet of 8 actively racing 36.7's we walked in and won the first race, after a less than stellar start. Then came a 4th and two seconds, the last very close to a win. We ended day one clear in second.
Day two was a bit tougher. We got pinned in a couple of races by boats insisting on sailing in bad air, or banging corners with us on the outside. We had three super close finishes on the boats ahead ending 4, 4, 3 (by 2ft, 4ft, half a boat).
Overall second place - our best result yet.
We're still going to have to work on our mark roundings, getting pinned was the result of being loose at either the windward of leeward mark (my hand goes up there). Our starts need to be more aggressive (I could write this EVERY regatta it seems).
Big improvements though!
Crew work was pretty much great both this regatta and during the NOODs, we've come a long way in the last year and it's nice for the hard work to finally pay off.
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