Not the sort of day to be a Race Officer! The opening day of the IOM Australian Championships turned into a frustrating and challenging day for the Race Management team of Kyle Stewart and Rod Marshall.
Weather reports for Hobart read like something out of the middle of June. Top temperature of 13 degrees - feels like 6. The top of Mount Wellington covered in cloud, snow on Cradle Mountain and a wind that would simply not co-operate. Kyle and Rod worked tirelessly in conjunction with their boat crew to try to keep racing moving but despite all the fantastic preparations that the Tasmanians have done for this event, there are some things you simply cannot control.
Over the course of the day, the breeze filled in and died and wafted around the dial. We had every direction except east. For a while in the morning, there was a time that we could get some racing in, so the three seeding races were completed before lunch. Then the rain came in, and snuffed out the wind!
Over the course of the afternoon, we could only get one more complete race and two heats of the third race into the books. It's far too early to draw any sort of line through form, so time will have to tell the story.
Around 4.30pm, the tide started coming in. A definite tide line washed across the course from north to south. The flow of water was really strong. Associated with the change in tide, a decent southerly blew up, allowing the B fleet for Race 2 to commence. Boats were flying upwind and hacking into the tide downwind - a most unusual sensation. Unfortunately, the wind didn't last more than 15 minutes, and attempts to get the final heat of race 3 completed saw boats getting swept along in the tide, unable to sail against it.
The forecast for today seems to have more knots in it, but the direction is looking like it will be super challenging to set courses. Still, that is the thing with yacht racing - you can't order the wind. For Kyle and Rod's sake - lets hope they get some assistance from the breeze.