Kiwi Skud 18 Team report on Day Two from Sail Melbourne

11:12 PM Tue 15 Dec 2009 GMT

'Kiwi Skud 18 team crossing the finish line at Sail Melbourne - Sail Melbourne Kiwi Skud 18 team' Rob Hielkema Click Here to view large photo

Sail Melbourne is the first regatta in the 2010 ISAF World Cup series. There are 13 nations competing in this Asia Pacific round. Our boat park is sourounded by 49ers, Lasers, 2.4s, Laser Radials, 470's, Laser 4.7's, Finns, various board sailors and of course Skud 18's.

After some late night repair work on our bent mast by our trusty coach our boat appears to now be up to speed with the other boats.

Kiwi Skud 18 team in their 3rd place bibs at Sail Melbourne - Sail Melbourne Kiwi Skud 18 team - Rob Hielkema Click Here to view large photo

Going in to today we were in third place overall. We had two races today. Our start in race one gave our coach goose bumps (which is a good sign). There was around 5 knots of breeze with flat seas. Once again today we were sailing an outer trapezoid course. Although we had good boat speed our lack or experience sailing together and a few mistakes put us towards the back of the fleet. However we are learning fast in our first regatta (in NZ we only have one Skud 18).

Race two of the day turned into a match race between first and second and third and fourth. During our debrief the Kiwi Skud 18 team learnt a lot and whilst retaining our third place overall we hope with our lessons from today to do better tomorrow.

Results:
3rd Overall (2,3,4,4)

by Robert Hielkema