Knickerbocker Cup: Full Metal Jacket on the Final Near-Windless Day

by Will Tiller

After three days of abnormally strong winds for the Manhasset Bay today there was very little wind to speak of. This meant we spent the majority of the day waiting out on the water in the extremely hot sun.

For about a period of 30 minutes a very light breeze marginally filled in and the race committee immediately banged a race away. Being one up in our semis a win would see us through to the finals so the boys were very excited to get racing. Coming into the final approach for the line we were slightly to leeward of Phil and went for a slow luff as he was a little early for the line and was trying to get over our bow.

As we came up and he rolled over us there was contact with our bow hitting his outboard bracket. We earned a penalty from this as the umpires thought us to have come from clear astern. Up the beat we were out tacking them and finding the pressure a little better giving us a lead around the top mark by a couple boat lengths but on the run they managed to slip by us. On the next beat they defended very strongly but we kept it very close and rounded the top mark directly behind them.

Down the final run we rolled over them to take the lead but we still carried the penalty from the pre-start. Right at the finish we attempted to spin in our turn but our lead was not quite large enough and they just glided past us to take the win and even up the semis 1-1.

The breeze then disappeared again and there was no more racing, this meant the top four were then placed according to the round robin leaving us in fourth.

We have been a little disappointed in our results in these three American regattas, but we’ve made a few refinements and it started to pay off in this regatta. The team is looking forward to good showing at our next regatta the Danish Open world tour event in a week’s time.

We would like to say thanks to our principal sponsor Chris Meads, SLAM, Aon New Zealand and The Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron.

Full Metal Jacket Racing
Knickerbocker Cup