2022 ILCA 6 Master’s Worlds Report – Grand Masters Fleet
The Master’s Worlds were held on Banderas Bay on the west coast of Mexico. The lure of warm weather, a daily 12 to 15 knot sea breeze with good waves, and the yacht club being based in a resort at Puerto Vallarta make this a pretty hard venue to beat. The occasional turtle popping its head up or dolphins playing were an added bonus.
I arrived a bit early for the regatta and went out on a coach boat with Swifto (Luke Elliot) while the ILCA 7 masters regatta was still on. I learnt that the sea breeze could be soft for the first race of the day, you had to commit to one side of the course or the other and that this could all be complicated by big shifts and variations in pressure.
My approach to racing was to have fun, not overly presume what the wind would do, keep my eyes out of the boat, and manage risk as much as possible while digging into one side of the course (yes – it does sound contradictory). Also, as Swifto advised, do a good job of the one thing that you can control – the start.
The four million practice starts during training at Fremantle really helped and I usually got off the start line in good shape.
The first few races were in 8 to 12 knots and I was spotting the pressure better than most and had a boat speed advantage on the fleet upwind. I was first or second to the top mark on the first upwind, was able to maintain my position or gain a bit on the downwind legs and was able to extend on the top reach.
By the end of day 2, I had two wins, a second and a third and was leading the regatta. For the next few races I had a 4, 3, 3 – however, the Canadian sailor Al Clark beat me in each of these races. Race eight was 18 to 20 knots and I got caught on the wrong side of the course on the first upwind and wasn’t able to recover resulting in an 8th place. The first race the morning (Race 9) wasn’t much better when I got caught on the wrong side of a large shift and ended up 7th which I had to carry.
In Race 10, the start line was pin biased. I started down towards the pin, avoided the chaos at the pin itself (boats hitting the pin boat and/or over the line) and was soon able to tack in a line of pressure and crossed the fleet to the favoured right hand side. With the wind in my now favourite 8 to 12 knot range I was able to extend and win the race.
Going into the final day, I was in second overall with Al Clark having a 5 point lead over me and an Argentinian sailor behind me by a similar margin. Racing was tight in the first race with myself second, the Argentinian third and Al Clark fourth.
The equation going into the final race was that I would win the regatta on countback if I won the race and Al Clark finished fourth or worse. I got a good start and knew that Al Clark was buried. I then heard a loud expletive and saw that Al had capsized while tacking. I was in the first few boats for the majority of the race but had a few boats camp on me on the last upwind and ended up with a fourth – meaning Al won the regatta by 3 points and I was second.
Next master’s worlds are in Thailand in February and the flights are already booked!
David Luketina