POST SAILING COMMENT FROM HARRY MELGES AFTER DAY ONE

M24 - The first race today was very close between you and Rob Greenhalge. How did it pan out?

HM - The first race was very close and Rob Greenhalge was going very fast. They had a very good run and we elected to go round the wrong gate and then we ran into a load of traffic on the beat and they actually passed us. We took a little back out of them by the top of the beat and then managed to get back through them downwind but they were sailing very fast.

I don’t think people realised the wind would come in that strong so a lot of people were pretty loose on their rigs and not set up for it, as were we. It seems like early in the day you can go left and then as the day goes on you need to protect the right a lot more. But we had good boat speed up wind which helped us a lot and we were able to get off the starting lines without too much trouble and if you can do that and get in the right lanes and go where you want it definitely helps a lot, but you have to have good speed.

M24 - You must have been pretty happy with your downwind speed on the first run of the second race?

HM - The first run of the second race we had very good speed on the boats behind us and then towards the bottom of the run we just got around the gate and then the wind shut off and with the tide we got pushed up wind and they were all struggling to get down to the gate so we were able to get a pretty nice lead based on that. Then it was just being conservative for the rest of the race making sure we didn’t make any mistakes.

M24 – Were you basing your strategy on the tidal situation?

HM - Well not really because we don’t know enough about the currents! We know some, but based on what a lot of the locals have told us, they don’t worry too much about the current, they worry more about what the wind is doing.

It seems like early on in the day you can get away with being on the left but then as the day goes on the guys that get to the right start sliding out on you and coming up underneath. So the first race you probably could still start in the middle of the line and go off with the fleet and then tack and be safe. In the first race we had seen that on the last beat the guys who went off to the right gained a lot, like Joe Fly who gained a ton on us and came in pretty close to us by the finish so then we knew that for the second start we needed to get out to the right straight away.

We started up by the committee boat, we had a little trouble getting our jib out which I think helped us stay back off the line, I thought that we might be over but fortunately we weren’t as we couldn’t get our jib uncleated until after the gun when off but it didn’t seem to hurt us and as soon as the jib came out we just shot out of there. Quentin and Simon Strauss were on our hip and they tacked and we tacked with them and Joe Fly happened to tack a little before us but we had good speed on those guys and were able to roll out. The guys in the middle of the pack with us seemed good for a while but as we got out to the right they seemed to fade.

M24 – So are you happy at the end of day one.

HM - Yeah, I’m happy, but there’s a lot of sailing to go!