SAIL4LIFE 12M Regatta Last Race

The last race of the S4L Twelve Meter Regatta was quite remarkable. There were four sail race teams on the water, and all had already proven their skill and endurance by surviving a series of no-nonsense qualifying events. The sailors who came to race on July 11 were indeed ‘the best of the best.’ 🙂

Unfortunately, James Munson had to drop out due to equipment problems. (this happens a lot in RL racing too). Please note that James was way out front in Race #1, on his way to a First Place when his boat crashed. He certainly deserved to be in this group, and hopefully he’ll be back next time.

That left only three boats on the water: TEAM WYC-1, TEAM WYC-2, and TEAM PENGZILLA. They were remarkably evenly matched, with each boat winning one of the first three races.

Race Four was the ultimate decider, the final competition that would determine the team challenge winners for 2015. If you were a spectator that morning, you knew nothing could ever be better than this! One ultimate, winner-takes-all shootout. 🙂

The race that played out after the start gun sounded was absolutely fascinating; it was chock full of tactical decisions and daring moves. I’ll talk about the details soon,  but in my last post I promised you a video of Race #4.

Here it is. This is a ‘racer’s cut’ version, with the clips in sequence and attention to the race marks so you can follow the boats as they sail the course shown above. You can also watch a higher rez version of the video on Vimeo. 🙂