Race 7 - Australian Sharpie Nationals

The last race of the national series saw Peter Chappell sailing The Lizard not even needing to show up, Race 6 had him already claiming his 5th Australian Sharpie championship. The Lizard scored 2nd over the line taking his championship finishes to 1st, 3rd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st and 2nd for the seven race series, when your worst result is a third - you could strongly argue you had a pretty good regatta. A light day with less than 5 knots greeted sailors, a delayed start, a start, general recall, a delay and more milling around. A crowded start line saw plenty of boats over the line and a general lack of maneuverability caused by light winds early on.

The restart saw a better line with no one over this time, a much better start favouring the pin end on the eastern side of the course.

The Lizard was at the front of the fleet (top 10) after the first work making a big tactical decision behind Vern Tidy to not follow the leading boat east and instead went west chasing the incoming wind.

Getting the spinnaker up at the top mark, clean crew work had the kite up before they rounded the mark.

Boats had a choice of two rounding marks depending which side of the course you came from and where you wanted to go next - it worked well.

The light winds remained for the first spinnaker run downwind, working the wind shifts saw a number of interesting position changes throughout the race.

Setting the pole in light winds took a degree of finesse, preparing the pole in advance reaped rewards for tight crew work.

Moving in a manner that was less likely to disrupt the boat moving through the water was better than flat out setting sails, of course, picking the wind shifts and being in the right position on the course was the difference between the leading boats.  

Getting the pole set after raising the spinnaker, a wind shift proved to be beneficial to those who planned ahead.

A morning race is normally a light breeze race with Perth's sea breeze usually arriving late morning, the light southerly breeze gave way for the off-shore south west sea breeze half way through the second windward work. 

With his hand on the tiller, The cows are loose had one of their better races of the series.

The Asylum did well in the light breeze gaining a handicap win for the race.

The boats heading east along the South Perth foreshore for the first work did well, likewise, heading west buried plenty of boats on the first windward work.

There were times the sheet-hand was able to get up on the side, most of the first windward work saw them sitting leeward. 

Once you were back in the fleet, you had no chance on this course, everyone got away from you.

As the sea breeze filled in, the rides improved with the forward-hand able to support some weight on the wire.