2017-18 Opening day, Saturday 07.10.17

Back at the Squadron after 3 weeks at Lane Cove, sailing Saturday for the opening day,  to integrate with the Historic 18s for the opening day.

South-South-east breeze, forecast big-sail, soft in the morning on the coast, but feeling a bit fresher than the forecast 12 knots. All skiffs other than Geothermal trusted the forecast and went big rig: as it eventuated, all these skiff made the wrong choice, Geothermal was right with seconds sail.

So the whole afternoon massively overpowered big-sail. Heavily biased line, LCC and Geotherm holding the pin, Sydney Sailmakers trying to come in on port, Lcc just behind them fell into dirty-air and had to tack away: this allowed Sydney Sailmakers and Geotherm to hold to the south and get an 80m lead by the Point-Piper top mark – with all the other skiffs well back, struggling in the somewhat extreme conditions.

Front 2 dragged down to Bradleys Head, LCC held the set and stayed high, but overplayed this and lost ground.

Rest of the day was a procession in this order: Sydney Sailmakers, then Geotherm, then LCC, to the Rose Bay mark, then Clifton Gardens, then Shark Island, Taronga Zoo, Point Piper then the run to the finish, with a good margin to Sydney Sailmakers (recruited a 95 kg forward hand from the 18s today working well in the over rigged conditions), then Geotherm, then LCC, with a distant gap to the only other finisher of the day.