This race was part of a racing series together with the YCG Week that we had raced the week before.
On Friday June 17, we left Voula with a 35-minute delay due to the low wind. The emerging light breeze carried us up to Cape Sounio off the overlooking Temple of Poseidon, with the entire fleet behind us. There we lost our wind, and our rivals on a more southern route, had the chance to overtake.
We finally started moving again, trying to regain our lost ground. However, the sun had set, and we realized that we should prepare for a difficult night of sailing, with low wind, humidity, and many sail changes between the J1 jib and the wind seeker.
The morning found us near the northern edge of Andros, with a wind speed of 15kts, giving us the illusion (and hope) that we were going to finish at the port of Andros in the following 2 hours.
Yet, to our disappointment, just before 11:00am, the wind died again on us, leaving all 4 boats becalmed within a distance of 1NM of each other. Quite fascinating, considering that we had been racing for about 19 hours. After 2 more hours under the sun and the fear that we wouldn’t be able to finish within the time limit, eventually a N-NE breeze carried us to the port of Andros, just minutes short of the time limit, right after a 22-hour sailing endeavor.
On Saturday there was the local windward-leeward race; “Liberty Regatta”, in front of the port. The wind was between 18-22kts, making it a rather demanding race. We decided to protect our boat and our sails, and wisely chose a moderate and safe approach.
Fortunately, not only our decision was proven right but we also won the race with quite a large margin ahead of the 2nd boat.
On Sunday June 20, the race back was a short one, only 14NM, with the finish line at Dysvato, the strait between the southern end of Andros and the northern point of Tinos islands. The strong winds that continued from Saturday, gave an advantage to the larger boats, leaving us at the 3rd position, yet winners overall of the Andros International Regatta as well as the YCG Week multi event championship.
We really enjoyed it.
RESULTS: