Greetings Race Fans,
We have had perfect weather sailing on Biscayne Bay this week and today was the most spectacular. Sunny, mid seventies, 10-15 knots of wind out of the southeast, and no powerboat waves. We sailed far out in the bay near Stiltsville on a long Olympic Triangle course. The racing was all about the clouds, with clear skies yielding more wind and a right shift, and lighter wind under the clouds.
We started race five on the first try. Team Horton-Nichol was in the middle of the line, well poked out ahead of the fleet with George Szabo and Eric Monroe. We worked the middle of the course and after ten minutes the two of us looked pretty good. That is when the race committee abandoned the race. We're not sure what the committee saw that we didn't, but the fleet headed back to the start area.
As we returned to the line, we adjusted our game plan to take advantage of the clouds and started near the pin. General recall. Again we changed the plan and on the attempt we started cleanly just below the mid-line boat and were off. We sailed a good first beat and rounded the first mark fourth. Course 1 has a reaching second leg, but in lighter wind the Star won't plane. The result is very few position changes before the bottom of the course.
On the second beat we worked the right side of the course and as the clouds cleared away we worked ourselves to the right and pulled even with the leaders. Bromby was sufficiently threatened to have us on his heels, and held a tight cover over us. As we approached the mark, the wind shifted far enough left for him to keep his lead. We rounded the second windward mark in fourth after the wind on the left side came back in and the French were right on our tails.
On the final run to the finish we sailed very well working the boat in the waves and were able to pull away from the French in fifth and John Dane in sixth but were unable to catch any of the leaders. It felt good to finish in a solid fourth place. After five races we are able to throw out our DSQ and move into 15th place. With another good race tomorrow we can move into the top ten.
The sixth and final day of the 2006 Bacardi Cup is dedicated to the Star Class. Today was the Star Class town hall meeting and it was great to see all the officers available to answer questions anyone might have about the future of the class. It is truly the best class in the world and Andy and I look forward to every day we spend in the boat. If you would like to join the Star class or have any questions about the boat, send an e-mail to the class marketing director, Tom VanderMolen at pvm001 at aol dot com.
Thank you for all your support.
Andy & Brad
Horton-Nichol 2008
HortonNichol2008 at gmail dot com
Coming soon! http://www.hortonnichol2008.com/
