HPR Midwinter Championship, Miami

all photos from Rick Tomlinsom

The HPR Midwinters started off with great sailing conditions yesterday.  This regatta is being run along side the TP 52 world's.  Wind was a fantastic 15-23 knots yesterday out of the 265-315 as there was a small cold front that passed through durning the races.  This brought some good shifts along with good puffs to ride.  I was sailing on Team Premier with a crew of very good sailors.  It was the first time we got together and we had a few issues in the first race, but in the second we sailed very well.

The fleet consists of 2 Carkeek 40's, Spookie and Decision.  Along with 2 Farr 400's Chessie Racing and Team Premier.  Not a lot of boats but all sailed very well.  First race saw Decision over early.  Chessie and Spookie sailed off to the left while we after a good start tried the right.  Left won. It was close.  Both Farr 400's lost some time because with the big breeze the spin halyard slipped through the stopper..  Took a while to sort it out and get going.  So our runs were not so good.  Spookie won, with Chessie second, followed by Decision and us.  

The second race, we very interesting.  We can see the clearing coming over the course from the north west.  We really wanted the right and to get there as fast as possible.  We decided if we could start on port at the committee boat it might be the race winner.  With the small fleet, so it was a small risk we could not get through and after seeing how the other set up we went for it.  Ducking the three others and clearing the committee boat by a boat length, we were off.  This saved us the tack in big breeze and made us the right hand boat.  Sure enough, the 15-20 degree shift came in when we were very close to the layline and we rounded first.  Chessie who was the right boat at the start on starboard, tack on our hip and followed us.  Spookie and Decision match raced out to the left and got hammered.

With the big right shift we gybed set.  3 minutes later Spookie sailed over us going faster, they give us 4 minutes an hr.  The rest of the race was holding position with no screw up.  We won and Chessie was second, Spookie third.  Decision had some problems with their spinnaker....

Points  Spookie           1,3 =4

            Cheesie            2,2=4

            Team Premier  4,1=5

            Decision          3,4=7

As you can see, very close racing.  Times are very close and the best sailed boat corrects out.