Oman wrap up

Finally back in sunny (not very) Amsterdam and starting to get back into the normal groove of things here.

The last day of the Oman regatta was not the best for our team, although as always you learns something everytime you it the water so it wasn't a complete loss.

With Roman out of action it was up to me to take on the steering job, but with the boat still in a bit of a state after being on its side for quite a while the previous day we had our work cut out for us!

We were a little late getting to the starting area because the mainsail halyard lock was playing up so that threw us a little and it was quite windy so we had to reef anyway but pretty much as soon as the racing started the breeze started to drop quite a lot and in the end we had less than 2kts.

The first race was a paired speed trial, we managed to be OCS... in the first lap which was not so good, but we nailed the second start and things felt good. As we were the last boat to take a run at the speed trial we were also the last ones to start shaking out the reef, and to my amazement the RC went into a sequence very quickly, even while we had our mainsail on the deck still... I asked for more time and was refused so we missed the start by a minute which in these races is like locking in a last place no matter what. Then the next start we had a nice one at the windward end of the line, tacked off to port and were 3rd at the layline, but seconds after we tacked back onto stb the whole mainsail came crashing down because the main halyard shackle wasn't attached correctly in the mad rush to make the previous start. So we DNF that race... then we had to rush yet again to get the main back up as the RC were not waiting around for us again. So we had a another shitty start and result, the last race was super light and we managed to hold of Shirley and the Spanish (UK) team on Andalucia to save ourselves the embarrassment of a last place in the regatta.

A very tough day on the water for us and I was not happy at all with the way the racing was run over the last 2 days of the regatta. Consider this: the only time in the entire Asian series that there were more than 6 races run was the day that Red Bull capsized in the 5th race of the day. so we DNF the 5th, DNC races 6,7 and 8 which means we went from winning the regatta to 4th. And guess which boats went into 1st and 2nd places after all the extra races on that day? I'll give you one hint it starts with an "O" and ends with an "N"

Add in the seemingly biased actions of the Race controller on the final day and you can see why I was pissed off.

Regardless of how I feel from my point of view, I was approached by other teams who thought it was very strange to have so many races on the penultimate day and for the RC to rush the racing though when it was clear that not enough time had been allocated to us to unreef.

Next on the agenda for the X40 is some odd jobs to get the boat ready for the European season and maybe setup the travelling gear so its better suited for the regattas.

I am off to Dubai on the 23rd Feb for the Maktoum cup then back to Sydney for some family time before the return to Euroland..