Dubai is over

Hi

Sorry for a long delay between posts.  Dubai in the RC44 was pretty hectic.

The final season event was a double point scoring regatta which unlike previous events could not be discarded either, so plenty of points up for grabs and a few teams very close together going into the seaon ending event.

The match race event proved to be our downfall for the year.  With the 1st day cancelled due to a lack of wind the committee decided to settle the season scores for the MR in 2 groups and only 4 races.  This seemed somewhat tough as we had probably had 45 odd races during the year over the 5 events, and then 4 races to decide the overall placings.

The event couldn't have started on a worse note for us when we had another equipment failure during the 1st prestart of the 1st race against Sea Dubai.  The steering cables decoupled from the cog on the steering hub and I was forced to steer the entire pre start and race with the emergency tiller.  This was certainly a 1st for me, but not ideal when every race is a must win!

We bounced back well to win our next race, but then lost the remaining two to finish the match race series a disappointing 9th.  This dropped us to 4th for the season having led pretty much all year.

We bounced back well in the fleet racing section of the regatta to finish a strong 2nd which also placed us as top boat for the fleet racing for the season.  And then combining the fleet and match race scores we ended up 2nd overall for the season.

We went to Dubai with the goal to come away with the overall title but it wasn't to be.  2nd for the year was ok, but after having had a strong year with all the other sailing 2nd is good enough!

I am in Paris for the next 2 days for the Boat Show and some work for Nexus.  There may even be an announcement from Nexus tomorrow...stay tuned