Harbour Blast Champion x 2

The best thing about winning is winning when you don't expect it. There are no expectations no anxiety and you have lot more fun in the process. Even though i won the Harbour Blast last year, I am not a racer (I think the last time I was on race gear was during the last race) and had almost as little expectation of winning this year as I did last year. The following is my report on the day.

Just about a perfect day for the 2009 Harbour Blast. Sunny heaps of wind, almost too much. Heaps of happy smiling people. lined up at the start with the windsurfers and started with a grunty gust that got us off the beach. Woo managed to ride the gust about a couple of hundred metres in front of everyone else. Managed to catchup with Woo half way to Somes Island, through lots of stop start gusts. Wind was getting lighter the closer we got to the motorway and saw a couple of guys (Tim Wood) smoking down the inside of the island so gibed back toward the island and thankfully into more wind.

At this stage Woo and Tim were significantly ahead of me, Woo having turned back to the island earlier. Finally got some really good pressure toward the bottom of the island and gibed again to avoid the wind shadow on the south side of Somes island and to get a good downwind run to the finish. Sailed a couple of hundred metres deeper downwind than Woo before I gibed onto the final run. This paid off in spades as Woo got held up by the wind shadow and I got into some really good wind.

With Woo behind me there was only Tim left in front of me. With Tim in my sights (distantly) I was smoking toward the finish line. To my surprise I past him in the water with a broken mast (a really unlucky break!). All I needed to do now was sail to the finish line, and hope I could keep it all together, which was not as easy as it sounds. By this stage the wind was cranking and I was going full noise downwind skipping from chop to chop. The board and fin were solid as just eating up the chop allowing me to concentrate on my line and find where the finish line was.

Finally crossed the finish line 20 minutes after I started in first place. Second time in a row. BBQ and beers afterward were awesome and the trophy has taken pride of place in the house. Wouldn't have got even close to winning without the sick gear. The 5.5 Neil Pryde RS sail, the Fanatic Ray board and C3 Venom fin were super fast and super solid.

Thanks to all the organisers especially Bob, Carol, Dave, Duncan for a well and safely run race.