Auckland, NZ
February 26, 2008

Things went sour on us today in both races at the 2008 International Tornado World Championship on the Hauraki Gulf. A busted spinnaker tack line dropped us to 29th place in the first race, and forced us to withdraw from the second when we were in fourth place.

Spinnaker Hoist - - Photo: Richard Gladwell/www.sail-world.com

As a bunch of our fellow competitors reminded us, that’s yacht racing. Your preparation work can be excellent but bad luck can still bite. With six more races to sail over the next three days we’ve dropped from our second place yesterday to an uncharacteristic 22nd. For us, it’s now all about racing harder than ever and improving every race.

Day Two brought more great but challenging sailing conditions, with the breeze still up around 12 to 18 knots and backing a little to the south as the afternoon wore on. It was overcast and around 12 knots for the first race and we had a good start and a good first beat to be up in the top six or seven boats coming into the windward mark. However we were on the port tack and owed right-of-way to a long line of starboard tack boats flying into the mark. After losing time double tacking we got around in 15th.

We set the spinnaker but found we couldn’t secure the tack, which is attached to the end of the pole by the tack line. The line cover had broken and the line kept slipping. We figured out a cumbersome jury rig but it meant tying off and untying the tack line every time we raised or lowered the spinnaker and we lost ground on every leg to finish 29th.

Hard reach - - Photo: Richard Gladwell/www,sail-world.com

Our host club for this event is the Takapuna Boating Club. You can download full results at Takapuna Tornado Worlds. We want to acknowledge all the support from our sponsor, Advanced Equities.

Sail fast,

Johnny Lovell & Charlie Ogletree - Team Advanced Equities I