NAWILIWILI — Fast Company, leading the NYC Horse and Pony Series entering the final race Thursday, gave up the Horse race to OZone by nearly a second. But — to quote one of the speakers at the graduation of the
NAWILIWILI — Fast Company, leading the NYC Horse and Pony Series entering the final race Thursday, gave up the Horse race to OZone by nearly a second.
But — to quote one of the speakers at the graduation of the 88th Police Recruit Class taking place at the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall — wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it.
Jim Saylor, skippering Fast Company, took off an a tack totally different from five of the other Toppers. The strategy worked as Saylor rounded the sixth mark first, chased by Doug Moore of Bonjolea II and Ed Tschupp of Papa‘au in third. The order never changed and gave Fast Company the win on an overall three points (two for the Horse race, and a point for the Pony race).
“The Pony race had just as much excitement with Doug Moore of Bonjolea II leaving the fleet to the starboard and sailing through the moored boats before tacking over and sailing back into the channel to cross ahead of the fleet,” said NYC Rear Commodore Kevin Arndt. “However, after trading tacks with Saylor, Fast Company led and rounded the mark first.”
The overall points gave Fast Company the series trophy for the Open and Monohull classes with 18 points followed by Bonjolea II taking runner up honors on 26 points, and Papa au nailing the third spot just a point back of Bonjolea II.
Sailing in winds of 10 to 12 knots out of the northeast, the fleet pulled all the stops in the Horse race.
“Fast Company and Bonjolea II took off on a port tack converging with the rest of the fleet who were on a starboard tack,” said Arndt. “Fast Company looked like she was going to make the green light as she came up to the intersection against Kato, but the light turned yellow forcing Fast Company to a nice lee bow position to Kato. Meanwhile, Bonjolea II was getting up a head of steam with skipper Bonnie Tiffany threading the needle through the paths of right-of-way boats coming across the starboard.”
At the Ninini Point lighthouse buoy, three Olson 30s with OZone in the lead and followed by Fast Company and Kato came up to the mark on port while Bonjolea II came in wide from the starboard.
“Have you ever seen too many people try to get into a revolving door?” Arndt said. “It was something like that, but with big boats.”
Chris Jordan at the stick of OZone kept its lead to the leeward mark by following the near-shore wind and conservatively dousing the spinnaker well before the mark. Sailing in clear air, OZone sounded the finish horn on an elapsed sail of 40 minutes, 28 seconds and corrected to 40:28 PHRF for first place in the Horse race. Fast Company followed on a 41:24 elapsed sail — just 12 seconds ahead of Kato — and corrected to 41:16 PHRF followed by Kato correcting to 41:28 PHRF.
Club class saw Speedy correcting to 39:42 Club for top honors followed by Weatherly (40:02 Club) and Papa au (41:42 Club).
The overall club ranking for the series saw OZone claim the trophy on 35 points followed by Weatherly at 36 points, and Speedy taking third place on 38 points.
The next race will be the first race of the NYC Wahine Series, starting Thursday when the first flags fly at 5 p.m. at Nawiliwili Harbor.
