Race 07

Sheer Force's performance in Race07 was not as good as we would have hoped. We were beaten across the line by yachts that we should have been ahead of, viz: Chloe III & Anthanta IV. While we did lose time at the Lady Bay mark, it's also true that we could not get past Anthanta on the outbound leg, which must reflect on our tactics or trim. What can we learn from this?

In outright placings, we were 10th out of 11 finishers, beating only Amon Ra (by almost 5 minutes). We crossed the line 11:51 behind gun-getter Cadenza, with Chloe 10 seconds ahead of us, and Anthanta 2:39 ahead. We were 4.5 mins slower than the fleet average, which is actually better than we usually are (our average is 5.3 mins), but this statistic is misleading this week, because the big yachts Uplift, X3 and Panther were all missing in action (or rather, missing from action), meaning the fleet was slower anyway.
On corrected time, we were 8th out of 11, and needed to be 4:33 faster to get the gold medal, or 2:58 faster to get the bronze.
In this abbreviated fleet, the handicapper didn't do too well in predicting the finishing sequence. Two yachts crossed the line 3 places away from prediction. Anthanta was 8th, expected 11th, and Sheer Force was 10th, expected 7th. Chancellor was 6th, expected 4th, and all others were within 1 place of their prediction. The handicapper usually gets Sheer Force pretty right, so we disappointed him/her/it last evening! The handicapper score was 52%, achieved by reducing an elapsed time spread of 16:36 to a corrected time spread of 7:59. This is better than the average score (40%).

The table below is in cross the line order.

Yacht	Elapsed	Outright	Handicap	Diff fm	Mins	Rel to
	Time	Place	Predict	Fleet	behind	Sheer
				Average	winner	Force
CADENZA	0:55:46	1	2	-7.3	0:00:00	0:11:51
GETAWAY SAILING.COM	0:57:08	2	1	-5.9	0:01:22	0:10:29
SPEARHEAD	0:59:54	3	5	-3.2	0:04:08	0:07:43
TOCCATA	0:59:55	4	3	-3.2	0:04:09	0:07:42
SYMBIOSIS	1:02:07	5	6	-1.0	0:06:21	0:05:30
CHANCELLOR	1:03:03	6	4	0.0	0:07:17	0:04:34
SUNDOWNER V	1:03:32	7	8	0.5	0:07:46	0:04:05
ANTHANTA VI	1:04:58	8	11	1.9	0:09:12	0:02:39
CHLOE III	1:07:27	9	9	4.4	0:11:41	0:00:10
SHEER FORCE	1:07:37	10	7	4.5	0:11:51	0:00:00
AMON RA	1:12:22	11	10	9.3	0:16:36	0:04:45
	Corrected	Corrected
	Time	Position
CADENZA	1:01:10	5
GETAWAY SAILING.COM	1:02:59	7
SPEARHEAD	1:00:49	3
TOCCATA	1:05:08	10
SYMBIOSIS	1:01:08	4
CHANCELLOR	1:04:04	9
SUNDOWNER V	0:59:14	1
ANTHANTA VI	1:00:12	2
CHLOE III	1:02:40	6
SHEER FORCE	1:03:47	8
AMON RA	1:07:13	11

After yesterday's result there are now 7 races & 4 drops in the pointscore, so still only 3 races are counted. Sheer Force will remain at 13th, on 18 points (3+7+8). Uplift & Sundowner will be on top with 5 points each (1+2+2 and 1+1+3). Both these two yachts have missed 2 races like Sheer Force, and they will not retain their positions if they continue to skip races.) Spearhead (6th, 12points=3+4+5) & Cadenza (4th, 9pts=1+3+5) are the only yachts to have raced every race.

Pointscore	Race07
Yacht	Points	Place	Lowest Drop
UPLIFT	5	1	3
SUNDOWNER V	5	1	6
ANTHANTA VI	7	3	13
CADENZA	9	4	6
PANTHER	9	4	5
SYMBIOSIS	12	6	6
SPEARHEAD	12	6	8
FARR LAP	13	8	11
SCARLETT O'HARA	15	9	9
TOCCATA	16	10	13
SUMMERSALT	16	10	8
LOVE BYTE	17	12	9
SHEER FORCE	18	13	9
CHLOE III	21	14	11
GETAWAY SAILING.COM	23	15	10
AMON RA	32	16	15
CHANCELLOR	36	17	24
OBSESSION	37	18	24
X3	38	19	24
DJ2 BOS GLOBAL	39	20	17
DISTRACTION	58	21	24
PANACEA	59	22	24
AKELA	60	23	24

Best wishes for Christmas & the New Year. If we don't see you beforehand, see you on 5 January!