Conditions were awesome, really challenging and the going was super tough.
In the hours prior to the race the breeze was around 15-18 so I was out on my 8.0, with the Manta 59 (85 litres) and Le Sam weedy, and it was all pretty comfy. I had the 7.0 rigged on the beach in case it picked up, as the forecasts had indicated it would...and it did, just like last year but stronger.
I changed to the 7.0 five minutes before the race started and this proved to be a very wise choice as the breeze kicked up over 20 and was probably nudging 24 -25 by mid-race I reckon. I'm sure plenty of people would have come unstuck with big gear once again, which would have been very hard to handle in the rough conditions.
I got away to a nice clean start and was probably second only to Dan for the first km or so, before Bjorn came past just upwind of me. Obviously I was pretty stoked to be in that position and was just telling myself to relax. I got around the first boat in the top few, and only 100m or so behind Bjorn and Dan, and managed to hold that position down the next leg back toward shore, though Jesper and Slowy had entered the mix.
After that the wind started to kick up and it became very hard work, my arms were swelling up and I was rapidly losing strength so I was really just concentrating on staying on, as I knew a crash would be very damaging.
The next few legs were pretty torturous but I wasn't really losing many places. Scotty McKercher came past a couple of times on the gybes, as mine were crap due to having no grip strength, but I would pass him again on the straights. The last outgoing leg was murder. The boat was far further out than it has ever been previously and this leg must have been 5-6km long, increasing the length of the race to over 30km.
I was happy to have made a couple of good saves from near disaster getting big airs on this leg, but still had not fallen until the final gybe where I just had nothing left in my arms. At this point Danny Aeberli, Scotty and Buddha Nickol took me on the inside of the gybe and I ended up in a long drag race with the three of them into the finish. Scott, Ash and I hit the beach together but I had the inferior landing skills of the three and settled for ninth.
I am absolutely stoked to crack top-ten for the first time in 20 years! Yes I had the speed to finish three or four spots higher, and blew my chance with bad gybes, but that's offset by the fact I managed to actually stay on when I could have so easily have had a disastrous crash on any of the last few legs. So overall I have to be very happy with the result.
I even won $500!!
Congrats to Bjorn who won in a canter by the looks of things, and to Slowy who came a very creditable 2nd! Well done mate!
