KATO WAS SO CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

The third race of the Gene Wells Memorial Series was held on 8/20/20. The course was A-B-E with two outside laps and one inside lap over 5.92 miles. The winds were 12-15 knots out of the North Northeast. Kato had a good start in front of Fast Company. When Fast Company tacked early to the breakwater the other boats followed. Papa Au with Tim Perry driving was the first boat out of the bay according to fellow crewman Roger Cable. However, he said that with their #3 sail up they didn’t point as well and they had trouble keeping up in spite of minimal mistakes. Their regular sheet trimmer Bill Petersen was out with an injury and Mike Curtis and new crew member Mark Dill did a great job filling in.

Weatherly with their teenage crew continues to have good starts and they are impressing the fleet. They were up with the leaders until they rounded the Ninini lighthouse buoy. As they set the spinnaker for their downwind run they got a tight knot in their sail. Helmsman Carl Andersson said this left them drifting without a jib or spinnaker for a long time.

A close battle for first place between Kato and Fast Company continued throughout the race. Weatherly and Ozone had a nice battle of their own. Both of these battles appear to be weekly events. Ozone finally got an inside overlap on Weatherly at the G-11 buoy by the Coast Guard station and managed to stay ahead of them in spite of a jib sheet getting wrapped up in the spinnaker during the takedown. Kato, who had been in front of Fast Company for the entire race, was not as lucky. They had a slow
spinnaker takedown and rounding at the same G-11 buoy. Fast Company stayed outside of them going fast and finally passed them on the last leg to the finish line.

Fast Company therefore has taken first place in all 3 of the races so far in this series (curse you Jim Saylor!!!). Kato took second place 36 seconds behind them. Bonjolea II with Bonnie Tiffany on the helm took line honors and corrected to third place in the PHRF Class. In the Club Class it was Iwa in first place with Karen Cole driving, Weatherly in second and Speedy in third. It was nice to see Janice and Shaun back on Speedy with skipper Dick Olsen. We still missed Double Espresso with skipper Charlie. Of the 8 boats in the race, only 4 got their RaceQ’s working properly for the GPS record of the race. Hopefully we can get all the boats to use it as one can learn a lot by re-living the race on the computer.

The 4th race in the Gene Wells Memorial Series will start at 5pm on Thursday 8/27/20 and the public is invited to watch from the Nawiliwili mole parking lot area.

-Chris

Click here for complete results and the RaceQs replay on the racing page.