420 and J24 - something with the numbers 2and 4 (also my birthday;)

I sailed the 420 nationals that was hosted by the Royal Madras Yacht Club in September 2008. I had just finished my exams ... and was in the middle of practical exams when I got sucked into sailing the 420 with Pallavi - another one from Chennai this time. The only difference was that I was going to be helming.
For about a week or so we practiced together... she would come over to the club after school, I would make it between studying for my practical exams.
It was great stepping back into the 420. Memories came flooding back... I remembered why I loved the boat so much.
I started racing with no great expectations... I was looking at it more as a great way to give something back, in the way of teaching someone. And also to see if I had it in me to helm this boat. She weighed 43 kilos and I was about 64, The weight was definitely in the wrong place, but I think we did quite well in the 15 knot breeze. We started off finished 8th and 7th in the first few races. But towards the end we started to get a little more confident, finishing 4th and finally 3rd overall in the last few races.

We finished a creditable 5th overall out of 15 and won the Women's National Title. It felt great!
Thanks Pallavi for the opportunity, I had a blast :)


I also sailed the J24 and match raced for the first time. It was an all girls team with Pallavi Naik (Goa) skipper, Trisha Sabir (Goa), Alekhya (Hyd) and I (Mad) lol...haha We called ourselves the 'Good Fun Team'.
It was the selection trials for the women and men's teams to take part in the Regional Finals that was going to held in Bombay in Oct 2008.
We had had hardly 1 day before the selection trials to finally sail together as a team as every one was either falling sick,,, or getting sea sick ;)

All in all it was another great experience, We beat Ayesha's team by the skin of our teeth. Our first surprise win was beating Ashim Mongia after being nearly 20 boat lengths behind... that was an amazing race,,, we just crept up from behind him and stole his thunder!... We couldn't believe our luck.
Then we had mishaps with our Jib Halyard.... which didn't go up around the windward mark, We lost to Ayesha and had an action replay with Barik.

Both Ayesha and us were tied...but she would win the tie as she had beaten us. We thought all was lost, until we realized that there was a knockout race for the 5,6,7,8,9,10,11 and 12th places. But even then, only if we got to sail against Ayesha did we have a chance of winning. To our luck , we were 9th and 10th.

The pressure was on... Ayesha was clear ahead, but still had an outstanding penalty! Suddenly we notice near the windward mark, she was head to wind and we passed her. And went on to win that race by a mile.

We later realized that Ayesha, had no idea how to do a penalty after all the match racing she has done... she actually did 2 tacks and 2 gybes...
So we won.!!!! In spite of all the odds... We get to participate in the Regional Finals, International Mumbai Match race and most probably the Nations Cup 2009 in Brazil :D Woohooo!!!!