When we arrived in St Martin 5 days before the regatta started, we were greeted with winds of over 30knots, unfortunately this carried on for the next 5 days, everyone was hoping for it to ease off before the first race. We would lie in bed at night as the whole boat shook as over 40knots ripped through the lagoon, this was a nightly occurrence for the first 7 nights!
Practice day on the Thursday was done with an imaginary spinnaker as the wind was still gusting to over 30 knots for long periods of time.
Friday morning we headed out of the bridge, all a little anxious of what the first race would bring. I think we were all a little relieved that with the wind coming from a north easterly direction it meant the spinnaker was staying below for the first half of the race. Finally we hoisted round the East of the Island as we were home bound. We were flying with Vanish in our sights, they beat us on corrected time by 9 seconds. We received a 4th place as Igoodia took line honours and won, Vanish got 2nd and Affinity crept in and received a 3rd beating us by 4 seconds.
Race 1 on Saturday, we were revved up and having a good race, until the final mark, the jib didn't go up, the spinnaker did manage to come down and we stalled ourselves for a good few minutes and let Vanish pull away from us and let a few slower boats sneak in front of us with the handicap system. After lunch we knew we had something to prove, and we certainly did that. Taking Line Honours and still taking 1st place after handicap. The crew were delighted and we certainly deserved it.
Final race on the Sunday, Igoodia and Vanish were joint 1st with 6 points each and we were 3rd with 10 points. We knew it was going to take a lot of work to improve on our 3rd place. I think our start said we were certainly capable of it, as we were a good few seconds in front of the whole fleet who were late for the start, Vanish got stuck and there was no turning back for us. We were on fire. Another line honours, 2nd on corrected time. Question was how did Vanish do, luckily for us they had a shocker and we got our 2nd in class and they dropped to 3rd.
Talk about hot competition, it was fantastic, with everything to play for. It wasn't until the prize giving though that we showed the rest of the regatta what Disco Inferno is all about......
Click here to Watch Disco Inferno's famous prize giving groove collecting our trophy for 2nd in class out of 19! YEAH BABY Hope you have sound!
View our Class Results, Spinnaker 4.
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