RN6: Harbour Rustiness

My first post for almost a month - mainly due to a holiday in New Zealand, but also a general lack of sailing! However, the Hong Kong "season" has now started in earnest, with class racing back in the calendar and hopefully the stronger and more consistent monsoon winds to come in the autumn.

As there was no Magic racing, I was coerced aboard an Etchells for racing in the Harbour. Now, I haven't raced in the harbour for six months, and even then I never really knew how to read its confused tidal/wind patterns. Hence, a race at the front of an Etchell was always going to be a challenge.

Wind direction and guesses about tidal flow

The prevailing wind in the habour comes from the east, and is channelled through the Lei Yu Mun Gap and onto the regular racecourse alongside the old Kai Tak airport.This means that W/L races are generally a beat against or with the tidal flow, with all the classic decisions this creates! Left or right on the beat? Tidal flow over wind strength? Are the eddies in the bay worth chasing? Are there permenant lifts/headers around the headlands?

This weekend was an incoming tide, and a nice 5 to 8 knots of breeze with the tide. The regular understanding is that the left (the Kai Tak side) doesn't pay against the tide as you usually you also get the wrong side of beneficial wind shifts and stay in the tide for longer. However, we took a choice to go left as it looked like there was more windstrength, and we managed to get off the pin end of the line in good shape! This worked very well for the first beat, rounding third, and gaining a place down the run.

The second beat unfortunately was very different - we went left again, and most of the fleet went with us. And we all got stuck in a hole at the top, while the back markers (who'd gone right) sailed past us. From second to sixth in one easy step!

We gained a few downwind again, but lost them again as we miss-read the course, set off to the right side for a no-existent third beat, and then hurried back accross the tide again to the finish line. Sixth overall - one way to brush off the rustiness.

Sunday was spent back on Strewth, but it was nothing to write home about - a race officer set a 25nm in a dying breeze, so we got most of the way round and then abandonned after about an hour sitting desperately trying to get a kite to fill.  Next weekend is back on my Magic - hoping for a good fleet and a breeze.