Waka Racing up against Haddad from Brazil. Supplied image.
by Garth Ellingham
Today the Knickerbocker Cup started well with a continuation of the nice Match Racing conditions we had been enjoying all week. We went out on the water on match point only needing to win one race to beat Dave Perry (who knocked us out of last years Knickerboccker Cup).
One match was all we needed as Phil did a great job of out positioning Dave in the pre start to come off the line well ahead. From here on it was pretty much plain sailing as we just maintained conservative tactics to take the match and progress into the Semi-Finals.
Our Semi-Final opponent is a familiar face in past crew member Will Tiller. In our first race of the semi we did another great job of completely dominating Will in the pre-start. We came of the line with him behind and in our dirty air. For the next couple of legs we maintained a comfortable lead, rounding the last top mark ahead. Unfortunately for us after picking a nice pressure to gybe into ½ way down the final run the wind crumped. With no wind visible on the water both boats barely had a spinnaker set. This is where it became a lottery and unfortuntely for us we didn’t have the winning ticket. Will came from pretty much directly behind to us to catch up. He only just managed to get us on Starboard just before the finish to stop us getting past him and took the race by a boat length. The wind did not come back in and the RC called off racingfor the day.
Waka Racing up against Haddad from Brazil. Supplied image.
This was a pretty bitter pill to swallow as we sailed well throughout the entire race and there wasn’t anything we could have done differently. It was just one of those situations when the wind dies and sometimes it doesn’t go your way. We talked about it after and we still have our heads up and are confident we can still do it tomorrow!
So hopefully tomorrow we will get enough wind to race and we can go out and do the businesss. If you want to watch us live we have a live feed on our website, www.wakaracing.com
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
