Waka Racing in a prestart at the Knickerbocker Cup. Supplied image.
by Garth Ellingham
Today was the first day of the Knickerbocker Cup and it was good one for us! The breeze was in and the sun was shinning. The race committee was on fire completing 13 flights and so were we ending the day with 7 wins – 1 loss to be leading th regatta after day 1.
Our only loss came in our first race against Chicago Match Race Center legend Bill Hardesty. It was a close affair during the prestart and first beat with a number of close dips and lee bow tacks. Unfortunately for us in one of these close situtions we pushed the point too far when Bill did a nice job of trying to lock us and we coped a penalty. We agreed with the umpires intial deision but when they decided to give us a red flag (this means we have to do our penalty immediately) we were left very bemused. There was no way back from here and Bill did a nice job of closing out the race.
However this did not get us down, with confidence high we launched a hot streak of winning 7 races in a row. These included victories over Henrique Haddad, Dave Perry (recent winner of the Detroit Cup), Taylor Canfield, Rueben Corbett, Nicolai Sehested, Sally Barkow, and Anna Tunnicliffe.
The race of the day was probably against our Black Sheep Racing friends where we coped a marginal penalty in the prestart for apparently not completing our tack in the dial up. The race was not over here however. We did a nice job of just winning the start and a tight couple of legs of racing entailed with the BSR boys right on our tail.
Three quarters of the way up the second to last leg we finally got a little jump on them but too their credit it was still not enough for us to complete our penalty turn. However we looked ahead and it looked like we would gain some really nice pressure first on the final run to the finish. So instead of slowing up and trying to trap the BSR boys into evening up the penalties we deicided to go “balls to the floor” and do our penalty turn right on the finish line. The decision was the right one with us just gaining enough distance to complete our penalty just in front of them and finish first.
Overall today was the best day we have had in quite some time with a really good vibe onboard. Tomorrow we have 6 flights off and then our last 3 races to complete the first round robin.We are looking forward to continuing our form so that we can get some good momentum going into the next stages of this regatta.
Over and Out,
The Waka Racing Boys.
Waka Racing would like to thank our main sponsor Tax Management NZ and all the support we receive from the RNZYS, Frontend, Zhik , Wells and Co, PredictWind and Devine Consultants.
Waka Racing
Knickerbocker Cup
