Sunday, November 22, 2009

the Windjammers Race

The Tall Ships Race was, together with the submarine race and the Uniform Ball, one of the Saturday Events of the Fleet Week in New Babbage.
The event was fun, with 3 match races: two semifinals and a final.

There were just 4 entrants, but that did not make it less interesting: Mr.
Tinus Koskinen, Miss BlackOpal Galicia, Admiral Bridget Jennings, and yours truly, Captain Wildstar Beaumont. There was also a good diversity in the ships that entered the race: a Schooner from the Black Spot Shipyard, a Trudeau, a ship from the the Southern Cross Shipyard, and my TSS Brigg.


Windjammer Race "New Babbage" "Fleet Week"

The sail field was challenging. A loop around several sims, with some tricky crossings that let you out of control for several seconds, a narrow path with many gates to go through which made it difficult to pass, once one was behind and a very tricky area where one had to sail into the wind with the danger of getting stuck.

In the first match race I faced Miss BlackOpal. It was a strange race: I believe her ship is not SL-wind propelled, which gave her an advantage at start, and I had to trail for a while. However, once my ship was up to speed it looked clear to me that the physical vehicle was sailing smoother and faster than the non-physical one. It is a pity that Black Spot ships do not work with SL wind. They are probably the most beautiful sailships in SL.



Windjammer Race

The second race saw Admiral Jennings with her SCS Battle Schooner to prevail on Mr. Koskinen. I missed the details of the race because I crashed right after my my stage.

In the final I had to face Admiral Jennings. There is little to tell. After the start, when we were head to head, she took the lead and I was not able to close the gap. On the side opposite the start line I had hope for a while to be able to catch her, but after a while the sailed away again and I was able to see her just from a distance.


Windjammer Race

Congratulations to Admiral Jennings for a perfect race.

The crowd filled the viewing area and seemed to have a lot of fun, greatly enjoying the event.  



Windjammer Race

 

Being busy in the race I did not have much time to take many pictures, but I invite everybody to visit this wonderful selection of PJ Trenton's images

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