After Thursday night's energetic AGM and fun in the bar, the fleet braced themselves for an early start. The forecast for the fourth and final day of the Nationals was looking grim: 8 foot waves and 30 knot gusts. This was a little worrying, but fortunately the weather man had got it wrong and upon launching we found a moderately bumpy race course with a nice 10-15kts of wind. This made for some good wave jumping and some epic down-wind surfing.
At the front of the fleet there was a good battle with last year's winners Graham and Eddie Bridle in Riot Van stretching their lead over Marmite, Eleanor and Subtle Knife. Eleanor and Subtle had some close racing, and in the final race Eleanor seemed to have completed a daring overtaking manoeuvre coming in hot to the bottom mark, only to capsize allowing Subtle to slip through. Pocket Rocket and Atum Bom were wonderfully consistent with 3 5ths and 6ths respectively. This cemented Pocket's 4th place overall and Atum's 5th.
Meanwhile the '97 rules fleet was having a right old ding dong. Pasta Frenzy was showing excellent speed, but couldn't quite overhaul Born Slippy in the final results after their superb handling of the strong breeze of days 1 and 2.
So ultimately Graham and Eddie won their second Nationals in style having shown their strength and persistence in difficult conditions and supreme speed when it mattered. Another father and son team came in second - Clive and Alex Everest in Subtle Knife showed that size and strength are less vital than skill and energy.
The week has been a joy. A full report will follow. When we've recovered from tonight's festivities.
