After last week’s race Papa Au came in close to the end of the breakwater near the loading dock and their keel hit the rocks. Ouch! But they were able to haul the boat out with Carl Andersson’s help and Mott did a nice job patching the damage. The boat was back in the water 2 hours before the race! But unfortunately before the start they noticed that one of the starboard shrouds had at least 4 of the wires frayed. They quickly took down their jib and used the jib halyard to reinforce that starboard side. But they didn’t miss out on the squalls! They got soaking wet just like everyone else.
In regards to the protest that Ozone filed on Weatherly for hitting the #6 buoy a week ago, it was thrown out by the Honolulu experts. Although a hail of “You hit the buoy, do your turn” was heard from skipper Chris Jordan, he never yelled “Protest” or put up a red flag. And since Weatherly got a finish horn before they did their turn, they took second place and Ozone had to settle for third.
This 4th race in the series was quite unusual with strange winds all over the compass but mostly from out of the south and the west. The winds tended to be very light until the many squalls passed through. The course was a short X-W over 1.86 miles and all boats finished in less than half an hour.
The first lap started upwind toward the mountain to round the G-11 buoy by the Coast Guard Station and the second lap rounded the G-9 buoy. The boats were coming in on starboard close to the race committee at the start. Ozone thought they were over early and turned around and restarted (but it isn’t clear on RaceQ’s if this was the case). However, this did put Ozone at the back of the fleet. Bonjolea II quickly took the lead and never looked back. Speedy was next and they had a very good race. Weatherly, Double Espresso and Ozone rounded out the fleet.
On the unusual downwind run to the Kalapaki buoy Ozone thought the wind was too far forward of the beam to fly their spinnaker. But they were wrong as in the light air the other boats put up their chutes and with their spinnaker poles on the headstay they gained.
On the upwind leg to the G-9 buoy Bonjolea II extended their lead. Speedy was still doing very well in second place. Weatherly wasn’t quite making the buoy and tacked onto port VERY close to Ozone (Protest close?). But Ozone got inside them at the mark and rounded ahead. On the downwind run to the Kalapaki buoy Ozone’s spinnaker went up inside the topping lift so it could only get up part way. Ozone took their spinnaker down and put their jib back up but Weatherly now easily passed them.
At the finish line it was Bonjolea II with Bonnie Tiffany on the helm taking line honors, first place in the PHRF Class and first place overall for the 4 race series. Congratulations! Speedy took second place with a very nice performance with Dick Olsen on the helm. Weatherly was third with Lily steering. In the Club Class it was Double Espresso in first with Maile on the helm and Ozone took second. There were not enough boats for a third place. For the overall series Bonjolea II won with 3 first places and a third for a total of 6 points. Ozone took second with 11 points and Weatherly took third with 14 points.
The Gene Wells Memorial Series is next with 7 races. This starts on Thursday 9/1/22 with a 5 pm start. The public is invited to watch the races from the Nawiliwili mole parking area.
-Chris
Click for complete results and the raceQs replay on the
Club Racing page.