Keep your eye on Tony (4105) here: This is a perfect spot for Tony to take a small risk. He should be virtually certain of laying the mark and being too cautious and bearing away here, could cost him half a dozen boats!! Judging by this and the previous picture, Tony will complete his tack outside the Two-Length Zone and thus will not be subject to Rule 18.3. In fact, Tony has been more cautious than I would have been. He could very likely have afforded to tack one length earlier, and thus avoided almost ...   - for full-size pic, click here

Later, near the end of the second beat: It appears that John has moved past Jamie (l) into 2nd place behind Al (r). Note how John has Silverfox trimmed to absolute perfection. Al's main is twisted off a bit too much, something that will happen to Al when he and Marc have been able to hike the boat down without vang use but then hit a surprise gust for which they have not yet vanged. It's a trade-off in these marginally overpowering conditions. Using the vang too much too soon, depowers the main unnecessarily, but if a gust hits, the vang wants to come on PDQ. (Marc's job while Al uncleats the main and gets set to ease the sheet.)

Judging by the apparent mast heights, Frank and Bill (yellow hull) are about dead even in forward distance. What Bill needs to do here is to avoid letting Frank sail over his wind. If necessary, Bill should foot off, even slightly below the mark and then shoot it at the last second - he'll have lots of speed that will let him do this. If Bill lets the pinching instinct run riot ...  

... to shoot the mark successfully, now having far less speed than he would have had if he had footed off in the first place!! I don't know if Bill managed the mark shooting - I wouldn't bet on it here - but I do know that Frank (no spinnaker and all) went on to take 4th in the race while Bill ended up 8th.