07.05.2023.
Start
The start line was biased and favored the pin-end side. Due to the lack of wind that causes boats to sail lower angles and pin side favored, many boats ended up being far below the line and crossing the line more than 10 seconds after the start signal, with Tutta Forza being 25 seconds behind. Boats mostly lined up too far from the line and had a hard time getting to it with the lighter wind.
1st Upwind
After the start there was a big pull on the right-hand side boats, sailing both higher and faster. This allowed Mataran and Amorwave to get ahead of the fleet.
Mataran, Amorwave, and Panjic all took the short right shift which allow them to move into the new coming left wind. It was a great move to cover the fleet better and defend against the oncoming left wind. With another right shift before the top mark, they were clearly in the lead of the race. Even though the wind direction went quite left, the full-left option was too disadvantaged at the beginning of the race. 2nd part of the fleet saw a big right shift coming at the very end of the upwind and from that moment on, the wind went to the sea breeze direction.
1st Downwind
1st downwind was bringing even more right wind. Even though the downwind ended up being very skewed, still it allowed the boats from far back to get back into the race, with Obi-Wan sailing the fastest downwind, passing both boats that went too far on both sides. Razjaren and Joyrunner had a hard time getting through the wind transition.
2nd Upwind
The race committee has moved the mark into the new wind direction. The wind went from 183 at the start, towards 220-230 degrees. Due to the coastline, the race has now become the typical race with the wind bending around the shore. With more right wind on the top and more left wind on the bottom of the course. In this case, the best option is always to sail toward the center of the wind bend, in this case to the shore. By doing it, you both benefit from the lift on the way to the shore and another lift after tacking to the mark, compared to the boats going away from the shore. The big danger of tacking to the left is that you are always getting lifted and there is never a good shift to tack back. However, you need to ignore it and go towards the shore anyway. Otherwise, you end up sailing in a permanent lift and get taken to the left corner from which it is hard to get back.
Looking at the top three boats, the app suggests a wind of 221 at the start of the upwind and a wind of 233 at the top part. Due to this, Mataran had quite a big loss by going initially to the left side. Panjic tacked back just to the top of Amorwave and stayed in that difficult lane sailing more right which put them in the 2nd place.
2nd downwind
The same rule applies to downwind sailing, gybe setting, and sailing in the right wind shift first. All the boats that have sailed more to the left side of the course, could not use the favored left shift to get to the finish line. Also, the course was significantly skewed so there was one more reason to keep on going after the gybe set.
You can easily notice the much lower sailing angle of Razjaren to the finish line, compared to Tutta Forza and Obi-Wan which have gybed too early.