NAWILIWILI — Good crew work and staying out of trouble pushed OZone to sound the horn with line honors and the top finish in the PHRF class during the Nawiliwili Yacht Club Gene Wells Memorial Series Race No. 6 that sailed on Oct. 6 in 8-to-10-knot winds blowing out of the northeast.
“Curse those light and flukey winds by the Kalapaki Buoy,” said Chris Jordan, the OZone skipper who wrangled the Olson 30 through the short-course buoy that had to be negotiated twice in the three-leg race that measured out to 4.63 miles. “After rounding the Kalapaki buoy, OZone had taken a lower course than the other boats that stayed up higher near the Kukui Lighthouse. By staying away from the cliff, OZone appeared to get more air and gained.”
OZone continued its move and ended rounding the Ninini Lighthouse buoy first, the lead keeping Jordan’s craft ahead of the wrangling going on between Fast Company and Bonjolea II in a battle for second place.
“After the final rounding of the G11 buoy near the Coast Guard station to head back upwind to the finish line, Fast Company broke tacks with OZone in an effort to gain on them,” Jordan said.
“But OZone tacked to cover them and, fortunately, their crew work was flawless. Fast Company tacked back again towards the mole where the NYC Race Committee watched. OZone didn’t take the bait and kept sailing in order to only have one more tack to the finish line instead of three more tacks.”
OZone sounded the finish horn with line honors, crossing the finish line on an elapsed time of 1 hour, 2 minutes, 16 seconds, and correcting to 1:02:22 PHRF for top honors in the sixth race of the series with just one more race remaining.
Fast Company followed about a minute back at 1:03:08 elapsed time and corrected to 1:03:14 PHRF for second place.
“Although Bonjolea II crossed the finish line next at 1:09:11 elapsed time, on handicap time, Speedy took third place over them by a mere 4 seconds,” Jordan said. Bonjolea II, sounding the horn on a 1:05:43 elapsed time, corrected to 1:09:21 PHRF compared with Speedy (1:09:11 elapsed time) correcting to 1:09:17 PHRF.
Weatherly, posting a 1:09:48 elapsed time, corrected to 1:05:40 Club for top honors in that class, followed by Papa A‘u (1:12:37 elapsed) correcting to 1:06:40 Club, and Double Espresso (1:13:42 elapsed) correcting to 1:07:00 Club.
The final race for the NYC Gene Wells Memorial Series will unfold on Thursday when the first flags fly at 5 p.m. at the Nawiliwili Harbor jetty parking area.
There will be no race on Oct. 20. The Nawiliwili Yacht Club wraps up its 2022 race calendar with the Halloween Race on Oct. 27.
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Dennis Fujimoto, staff writer and photographer, can be reached at 808-245-0453 or dfujimoto@thegardenisland.com.
