NAWILIWILI — Fast Company, with Jim Saylor at the stick, may have finished first Thursday during the final Nawiliwili Yacht Club Rum Race Series, but overall, the Olson 30 ended the standings in fourth place. The Olson 30 skillfully made
NAWILIWILI — Fast Company, with Jim Saylor at the stick, may have finished first Thursday during the final Nawiliwili Yacht Club Rum Race Series, but overall, the Olson 30 ended the standings in fourth place.
The Olson 30 skillfully made its way through the complicated traffic of eight boats in the light 4 to 6 knot winds out of the north, triggering the finish horn in second with an elapsed sail of 44 minutes, 42 seconds and corrected to 44:46 PHRF for top honors.
“Fast Company, in tandem with Bonjolea II, were both on starboard tack at the start,” said Kevin Arndt, the NYC rear commodore. “This forced the rest of the fleet who were on port tack to bear away, giving up precious distance on the 5.9-mile race.”
The light winds out of the north made for a close spinnaker reach coming inland from the first leg to the Ninini Point buoy with Bonjolea II staying ahead of the pack followed by Fast Company out to the leftside followed by Weatherly’s youthful crew.
This crew forced Fast Company off the course line on the downwind leg which allowed OZone and Papaau to make up lost ground. With the four lead boats crossing the leeward buoy in a pack, Fast Company was able to make the wind shifts and break away, but still chasing the leading Bonjolea II.
The first finish by Fast Company could not better the results of its five previous race, including April 21 when Fast Company did not compete. This gave her 14 points in the standings, good for fourth place.
Papaau was in the thick of the traffic, staying out of the fray and crossed on a 47:26 elapsed sail, correcting to 45:24 PHRF and second place in the race. The finish was enough to catapault the Express 27 into first place for the series with 9 points.
What followed is a tie for second place as OZone, finishing fourth in the Thursday race (47:25 elapsed, 47:29 PHRF), and Bonjolea II, finishing third in the Thursday race (44:21 elapsed, 47:15 PHRF) ended with 11 points each. The tie breaker was broken with the most first finishes, pushing OZone into second over Bonjolea II.
Following the leaders, Weatherly (47:37 elapsed, 47:41 PHRF), Speedy (51:47 elapsed, 51:51 PHRF), Coyote (56:29 elapsed, 52:54 PHRF), and Trinity (49:41 elapsed, 56:53 PHRF) made up the fleet.
Weatherly finished tops ion the Club class on a 43:17 Club correction, but the overall trophy went to Coyote with an overall 12 points, including two first finishes in the series. Trinity and Speedy tied with 20 points each, but Trinity took second on the tie-breaker ruling.
The Nawiliwili Yacht Club Junior Invitational Race starts on Thursday and the NYC Race Committee invites people to view the competition from the vantage point of the jetty wall parking area when the first flags fly at 5 p.m.
