Kiwi Skud 18 Team report on Day Four from Sail Melbourne

2:14 AM Fri 18 Dec 2009 GMT

'Kiwi Skud 18 team Tim Dempsey and Pauline Eitjes - Sail Melbourne' Robert Hielkema Click Here to view large photo

Sail Melbourne is the first regatta in the 2010 ISAF World Cup series. There are 13 nations competing in this Asia Pacific round. Our boat park is surrounded by 49ers, Lasers, 2.4s, Laser Radials, 470's, Laser 4.7's, Finns, various board sailors and of course Skud 18's.

Today was a nice contrast from day three; sailing in temperatures of 39 degrees Celsius is something we need some more practise in. It caused a couple of brain fades in the form of missed wind shifts. We did a lot of learning and were confident that we had a lot to build on for day four.

'Today we really wanted a first, Pauline and I had a chat and we decided that today was our day' said Tim Dempsey.

We got out early, felt prepared, started well winning the start and went the right way upwind, coming out at the top mark 45 seconds ahead of 2nd place.

We led to the reach and bottom marks. At this point the game changed and a thunderstorm storm was rolling in. This shifted the wind 90 degrees favouring the mark we didn't go around at the gate.

We watched in disbelief as the others rolled around inside us and sailed off into the looming clouds. However we stood our ground and fought onto the finish. By the top mark we were back in 4th and attacking for 3rd. On the finish the second place yacht hit the boat and was given outside assistance meaning suddenly we were challenging for 2nd. We came in to the finish line on starboard and Krista from Melbourne (currently 4 points ahead of us) managed to squeeze their bow ahead on the finish line.

So a third place for our efforts today.

We are looking forward to two races tomorrow and hope to challenge for 2nd place overall.

by Robert Hielkema