Despite a spinnaker mishap, Kato — one Olson 30 in the fleet of four Olsons — held on to take the second race of the Nawiliwili Yacht Club Louie Abrams Memorial Series on Thursday in light winds of 5-7 knots
Despite a spinnaker mishap, Kato — one Olson 30 in the fleet of four Olsons — held on to take the second race of the Nawiliwili Yacht Club Louie Abrams Memorial Series on Thursday in light winds of 5-7 knots and wind-blown chop.
Kato jumped out of the tight pack at the start and held onto its lead with enough distance to give spectators the opinion that this was a race for second place, said Kevin Arndt, the NYC Rear Commodore.
“With a sizable lead, Kato rounded the (Ninini) Lighthouse buoy first and up went its spinnaker,” Arndt said. “Then, down came their spinnaker, gently floating down onto the lee side after the halyard shackle failed. If the sail filled with water, it could have turned into a disaster. But before you could say, ‘Holy chute, Batman!’ the crew had the sail hoisted up on the spare halyard.”
The rapid recovery did not cost Kato any ground and the Olson 30 went on to finish on an elapsed sail of 47 minutes, 58 seconds, correcting to 48:02 PHRF for first place.
Fast Company, another of the four Olsons in the race, crossed in second place on an elapsed sail of 59:56 and correcting to 50:01 PHRF. Papa‘au, an Express 27, crossed third (50:42 elapsed, 50:42 PHRF).
OZone (51:25 elapsed, 51:30 PHRF), Bonjolea II (50:22 elapsed, 53:40 PHRF), Weatherly (54:28 elapsed, 54:33 PHRF), Kaos (59:13 elapsed, 59:35 PHRF), Speedy (1:00:47 elapsed, 1:00:53 PHRF), and Trinity (56:42 elapsed, 1:04:33 PHRF) filled in the remainder of the nine-boat race fleet.
Weatherly corrected to 49:35 Club to take top honors in that class followed by OZone correcting to 50:29 Club for second place honors. Bonjolea II corrected to 51:38 Club for third place in the class.
The third race of the NYC Louie Abrams Memorial Rum Series takes place Thursday at 5 p.m. from the mole area at the Nawiliwili Harbor.
