Giddy Up! Fast Company takes the lead in Horse and Pony Series

On the first race of the Horse and Pony Series, it was the NYC’s fleet of Olson 30’s and an Express 27 that showed up to the starting area. The winds were 10-15 knots out of the NNE, and the course was “A-E”, a shorter course than usual to leave time for the “Pony” race in Toppers. At the start horn it was Fast Company first out of the gate, with Papa a’u and OZone at her heels. Fast Company kept their lead as they made the Lighthouse buoy and set their chute for the downwind leg to “G11”.

The south swell running that day set up a surfable section feathering off of the Nawiliwili breakwater and all the boats got a nice push as they rounded it. The rest of the race was inside the harbor with boats playing the wind shifts to gain some distance over there competitors. It was still neck and neck at the finish with Fast Company first by a nose (29 seconds actually) followed by OZone. However, it was Papa a’u that took first in PHRF class winning by 10 seconds over Fast Company.

The wind was still blowing nicely at the start of the Pony race. The Pony skippers were represented by Weatherly/ Nate Sullivan, Fast Co/ Jim Saylor, Speedy/ Tim Perry, Papa a’u/ Kevin Millett, and Ozone/ Thor Temme. The five Topper skippers were jockeying for the best position when the start horn sounded – again it was Fast Company’s Jim Saylor with the best start, but the rest of the boats were right behind him. The course was to the windward mark “RN-6” to port and back to the finish line at the Nawiliwili Harbor entrance. Some skippers split tacks going straight up the middle, some went wide to make the lay line in one tack. Nate Sullivan from Weatherly, with easily half the body weight of the other skippers, capsized a few times but skillfully righted his boat each time and had a lots of fun in the blustery conditions. It was Jim Saylor finishing first giving Fast Company a combined score of 3, the PHRF lead so far in the series. Next to finish was Tim Perry giving Speedy a combined series score of 6, a third place PHRF for the series. Followed by Kevin Millett from Papa a’u with a combined score of 4, currently second place PHRF in the series.

– Kevin Arndt

Click here for photos by Charlotte