After snapping my mast in transit following the Gold Cup, a replacement Wilke mast arrived from Switzerland only the day before the regatta started. This provided some tense moments before the regatta, and some frustrating moments during the regatta, as the luff curve on my North UK sail did not fit the bend of the new mast, significantly affecting my upwind speed during the regatta.

The first day produced a nice building sea breeze with flat water, making for some tight racing. After winning the start in the first race, I separated from the fleet to the right, and got caught by a geographic left-hand shift off the shore, playing catch-up after this early set-back to finish 3rd. Realising that this riskier strategy of backing my wind strategy was inappropriate for such a small fleet, I played the fleet tightly in the second race, controlling the fleet the whole way to win.

On the second day, after waiting whilst the wind struggled to settle in the morning, we got hit with a monster sea breeze in the afternoon. Starting in 25 knots, the breeze soon built to over 30 knots, generating a nasty steep chop to go along with it. Without having time to properly calibrate my new mast, I started race 3 with my mast way too far forward, creating a flat sail with a very tight leach. This meant that I ended up "chopping wood" over the short waves, unable to drive the boat through the waves and let the leach do some of the work for me. With this problem, I struggled for pace uphill, and finished 3rd. After winding the mast back some 10 turns (or close to 100mm at the tip), I got the boat going in the second race, and with better pace upwind and downwind, stretched away to win race 4.

The weather on the third day threatened to put an end to racing with a big southerly change expected to push the wind above 40 knots. However, the thunder and lightning skirted around the edge of the lake, with winds only reaching 20-25 knots (in between sleeting rain!) On short courses, I sailed the fleet tightly to minimise risks and used my superior pace around the course to win all three races on the day and take the national title.