Plenty of racing on day one in Detroit at the Bayview Yacht club, situated on lake St Clair. The racecourse is situated directly in front of the clubhouse which provides great viewing for the spectators. As you would expect there was quite a lot to be gained from staying out of the current. Today, the race committee completed almost half a round robin so they will be looking to complete it tomorrow.
Competitors / Results (win-loss)
Anna Tunnicliffe (USA) 5-0
Laurie Jury (NZL) 4-1
Black Sheep Racing (NZL) 4-1
Dave Perry (USA) 4-1
Bill Hardesty (USA) 3-2
Taylor Canfiled (USVI) 3-2
Chris Van Tol (USA) 2-2
William Tiller (NZL) 2-3
Sergey Munsikhin (RUS) 1-3
Henrique Haddad (BRA) 1-4
Kent Colpaert (USA) 0-5
Nicolas Sehested (DEN) 0-5
We had a beautiful westerly breeze and started the day with a loss to US legend, Dave Perry. This was our only loss for the day and currently we are sitting in second equal on four wins and one loss, with Dave and fellow Kiwi Laurie Jury. Leading the way is defending champ and Beijing gold medallist, Anna Tunniclifffe on 5 wins. The two sides of the draw will meet tomorrow.
Probably our best race was our come from behind victory against Henrique Hadddad (BRA). We lost the start but managed to keep it close and make some small gains by following him for the first part of the run. Henrique then gybed out into the current back to the mark, but we chose to continue, picking up some more pressure and spending longer out of the current. We gybed back on a perfect layline enabling us to enter the two boat-length zone at the bottom mark overlapped inside and entitled to mark room. Henrique then didn’t give us enough and forced us wide where he was then given a red flag penalty, to be completed immediately. We were able to cover from here to win the race.
We have the morning off tomorrow so will be able to have a sleep in and will be looking to continue our good start to the regatta.
The regatta updates and live streaming of racing can be viewed at http://www.byc.com/
Black Sheep Racing would like to thank the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, friends and family for their support. Thank you!
Until tomorrow,
Black Sheep Racing
Brad Farrand
Tom Bentham
Reuben Corbett
Andrew Clouston (Coach)
