Saturday, June 14th: The Start

The start: At 9:55 the warning gun went off. Five minutes to the start. Pegasus circled around and played cat and mouse with Pyewacket. Well we had a perfect start to windward. But that didn’t matter because Pegasus was now the mouse and Pyewacket the cat: They started in much better current to our left. Theoretically in abstraction of local knowledge in a much weaker position. We completely missed the fact that there was so much current relief close to shore in the strong flood. We made a couple of other tactical mistakes getting caught in worst current than they were on several occasions. An hour later we were 30 lengths behind slightly to windward of them. All they have to do is stay between us and the finish for another 30 hours. All we have to do is pass them! And that won’t be an easy task. The good news is that we sail Pegasus 77 fast. You don’t have to win the start of an offshore race, you just have to stay in touch and wait for your opportunity. Now, we just need to make the right tactical decisions!

In straight line speed sailing we're catching up with Pyewacket. At Noon we're sailing lower and faster.