Inshore racing at FSC.
The game is to see who is sailing with a full compliment of crew, who is trying to sharpen up their crew for the Valmadres later on in the month and who is there for a good day out. Wandering through the Fremantle club house admiring the renovations, I bumped into a couple of skippers who for one reason or another were short of crew for the day and were bemoaning the fact that they weren't out on a good day.
Watching from North Mole, I had a decent lens on the camera and I was able to sight the fleet over on the Parmelia Course over toward Garden Island. Resolution at over 2 nautical miles is iffy and without a tripod I was having to be patient until the fleets came roaring up to Bathers Bay and made the turn and then started the run out to sea on a reach that showed them to their best advantage on the Northerly that was coming through.
Tony Mitchell had Calm out with a full crew on board and had been out earlier in the day to test the boat out prior to the start of the Inshore racing. Seemed to be doing fine as only a minimal count of tacks were required to get the big boat up to the turning buoy and onto the reach. The Swanson's Syrenka was not too far behind as was Mike Giles and Endorfin, but Calm was leaping ahead by the minute and the last image I have in mind is the sight of Tony and Andrew disappearing off to the next mark while Endorfin and Syrenka powered up and took off in pursuit, some four or five minutes behind already. One long shot I have included was the sight of Calm already around the next mark and the next two gamely plugging on.
Which leads me to my next comment. The handicapper will have to do some hard work to bring Tony to heel with this boat as I don't think that they have touched on her true performance figures yet, though I did overhear some one mention 18 knots for the downwind runs and at least 10 knots on the upwind.
Enjoy the photo's
Watching from North Mole, I had a decent lens on the camera and I was able to sight the fleet over on the Parmelia Course over toward Garden Island. Resolution at over 2 nautical miles is iffy and without a tripod I was having to be patient until the fleets came roaring up to Bathers Bay and made the turn and then started the run out to sea on a reach that showed them to their best advantage on the Northerly that was coming through.
Tony Mitchell had Calm out with a full crew on board and had been out earlier in the day to test the boat out prior to the start of the Inshore racing. Seemed to be doing fine as only a minimal count of tacks were required to get the big boat up to the turning buoy and onto the reach. The Swanson's Syrenka was not too far behind as was Mike Giles and Endorfin, but Calm was leaping ahead by the minute and the last image I have in mind is the sight of Tony and Andrew disappearing off to the next mark while Endorfin and Syrenka powered up and took off in pursuit, some four or five minutes behind already. One long shot I have included was the sight of Calm already around the next mark and the next two gamely plugging on.
Which leads me to my next comment. The handicapper will have to do some hard work to bring Tony to heel with this boat as I don't think that they have touched on her true performance figures yet, though I did overhear some one mention 18 knots for the downwind runs and at least 10 knots on the upwind.
Enjoy the photo's