Coventry reef

Coventry Reef Race
Unfortunatly this turned out to be not so successful and again the conditions made it tough for a small boat. The forcast early in the week had us getting down to Coventrys in a 25 knot North Wester but this changed everyday and once the morning came it was very light. After a good beat to the Day Buoy we went arround in our usual position with the top half of the fleet. We had the small kite hooked up ready to go up if it allowed however we got to good for ourselves and by the time Bugs and Naviguessor had a look it was to shy (although it was an excellent kite hoist boys). This cost us a bit as we were heading at Garden Island instead of Rotto, however we did get in to clear air and rounded with the remaining boats of our size. Up next was a 17 mile run to coventrys with the breeze forcasted to go around from the North to North West. With Bugs wanting to go one way and Adam the other a few words were said and it was decided that we would work our way out to sea hoping for the pressure to come through. Well it did and on our final gybe we had a 30 degree shift and we were back aiming at Garden Island instead of coventrys, We crossed behind all of Div 1 and even a couple of div 2. Adam being himself let bugs know that we were the wrong side of the course however we took it on our chin and had to work hard.

We went around coventrys in about 15 knots NNNW breeze and plugged away and could see a black clound appearing knowing pressure was coming so a change in the head sail to the 3 we started recording 30 knots and above and then we heard a bang and the Fractional Kite Halyard being used for the head sail at the time snapped Simon and Adam were up on the bow in a hurry and we had it back up in about 30 seconds so an excellent recovery all around. We plugged away and after going into the beach an excellent lift was picked up. The breeze dropped quickly back to 10 - 12 knots for the remainder of the day which left the big boats with all the placings. We worked hard to get in front of the Longboat, Addrenalin Rush, Slipstream, Archimedes and Circa and then let Slipstream back through although we were quite happy with our trip back to get to where we were.