A Down to the Wire finish in the Wahine Series

Trade winds were a brisk 15 knots as six boats came to the starting line for the fourth and final race of the Nawiliwili Yacht Club Wahine series. Unlike last week, where a mixed port/starboard tack start led to two protests, all boats started on starboard tack (with the wind from over the right side of the boat, looking forward). Kato immediately jumped to a 2 second lead, but Bonjolea II quickly regained the boat-for-boat lead due to solid upwind sailing and a longer boat. (If all other things are equal, a longer boat sails faster than a smaller boat.) But the race course is not all upwind…and Bonjolea II eventually lost the lead when they did not deploy the spinnaker on the downwind leg. Weatherly also failed to deploy a spinnaker after the first attempt.

After turn-around in the first loop, the race son devolved into three match races: Bonjolea II against Kato and Fast Company, Kato against Fast Company, and Ozone against Weatherly. Papa A’u, which won the third race in the series, trailed the rest of the fleet.

On the second upwind leg of the course, Bonjolea II temporarily regained the lead. Kato moved ahead of Fast Company in a hard fought duel. Ozone, deploying their spinnaker, was able to stay ahead of Weatherly for the balance of the race.

And the winners of this race were:

PHRF:
1 – Kato
2 – Fast Company
3 – OZone

Club:
1 – Weatherly
2 – Papa A’u
3 – Bonjolea II

– Bill Georgi

It was an extremely close finish for the series, with Kato and OZone tied after the 4 race series in points and finish places. In the end, it was Kato that edged out OZone by finishing higher in the final race of the series with Fast Company finishing in the 3rd spot. The top club class finishers were Papa A’u, Bonjolea II and Weatherly. Congratulations to the wahines at the helms and their and crews.

The next race series is the 7 race Gene Wells Memorial Series which starts September 7th.

Click for results and more photos.