Hulla, Hulla, Hullaballoo!

By Robin Young, Pyxis

Another glorious day meets the Singapore SB3 sailors at Raffles Marina. A few of the crews even arrived early to do some performance tweaking. However, certain people will have wished they hadn’t bothered after getting rope burn in rather sensitive areas after a boat righting happened a bit quicker than planned. Don’t worry Wallace, we mention it was you or your nipple we are talking about.

After a slightly delayed start all 6 boats made it to the start of the first race. The fact they all arrived at the starboard end led to a slight dispute between Bandit and Komodo. The rights and wrongs of which were still being debated late into the afternoon. After the start the fleet split left and right with Bandit doing particularly well going right. However it was to no avail as after the fleet rounded the windward mark the wind first died and then switched 180 degrees filling in from the south. After some rapid kite handling to tack round the leeward mark the boats were running again back to the windward mark. Add to this some sporadic horn blowing and calls of “sorry” from the race committee, it all resulted in a tricky first race. Hullabaloo brought it home first, Bandit benefiting from their first leg gains in second and Pyxis in third.

With the wind now steady from the south the second race was set in the opposite direction to mark ???? A longer than usual beat meant there were some good opportunities for tactics and boat speed to come to the fore. Hullabaloo made it to the windward mark first after keeping right up the beat, closely followed by Su me and Pyxis. The run back was pretty nerve wrecking with plenty of gusts blowing through the course giving opportunities for overtaking. Hullabaloo held on for another win with Pyxis showing some good speed to grab second. The top three being round off by Su me.

After a quick on water debate about the third race it was decided to do a running start towards our original windward mark from the first race. With people still trying to get their heads round a downwind start Glasgow Kiss and Hullabaloo were off and running with good starts. All the boats were back together again by the first mark, a bit too close for Bandit who ended up in a no win port and starboard scenario with at least other three boats. The resulting penalty turn leaving them at the back.  A good reach back to the light house to finish resulted in a clean sweep for Hullabaloo, a much improved second for Glasgow Kiss and a third for Su me.

The best thing about the light house finish is it means minimum race course to bar time with all crews looking forward to a cool beer and refreshing swim. Congratulations to Hullabaloo for a clean sweep and thanks to Bill and the crew of Komodo for laying the marks and being race officer for the day.  

Overall Results

Boat	Race 1	Race 2	Race3	Total
Hullabaloo	1	1	1	3
Pyxis	3	2	4	9
Su me	4	3	3	10
Bandit	2	4	6	12
GK	6	5	2	13
Komodo	5	6	5	16