Venture Fasteners #1

Results: 7th in Fleet/12th Overall
Crew: Rosemary, Hunter, Mark, Andy, Judy, Andrea
Wind: ENE @ 20 knots
Course: W/L 2x

It was a breezy night, and it’s a good thing we had our heavy air crew with us. Because we had some extra weight onboard, and because the wind was right on the cusp of needing to reef, we sailed with a full main.

We had a good start in the middle of the line and sailed the first upwind leg well, seeing high 5s and 6s for upwind speeds. We stayed in the middle and on the left side of the course. There was a little less wind on the right side. So I think we were well positioned. After rounding we set the fractional chute and tacked downwind with speeds in the high 6s and 7s. We dropped the chute and headed back upwind without incident.

The next upwind leg also went well and we were in reach of the fleet, and we had our time on Altair. As we looked back on the first downwind leg we thought maybe we could switch to the masthead runner for the last leg so we could sail a little deeper.

It turns out that we were a little overconfident. After we set the chute we discovered that the starboard sheet had been re-rigged wrongly, and it was wrapped around the lifeline. The friction made it nearly impossible to trim the chute. So while we dealt with that situation by jury-rigging the lazy sheet to be used, I drove distractedly and we really couldn’t trim properly. We gave up a few minutes on the leg due to greed (should have stayed with the fractional kite) and lack of watchfulness (check, check and triple check).

However, we finished fast and had a nice quick ride home. At least we beat Altair and we actually corrected to within 6 seconds of TAZ II (Beneteau 40). We’ll take that!

The Annual Day Lighthouse Race

Results:  8th

Crew:  Mark, Rosemary, Andy

A beautiful, but light air, day.  The start of the race was delayed by a half hour, waiting for a consistent 3 knots of breeze.  We had a good start – we picked a nice spot and were at the line at the start.  We got the chute up efficiently and were able to reach down the bay.  When we hit the channel we were in touch with the fleet (a good place for us to be with our rating – in fact, if the race had ended at that point we would probably have won!).

At the channel the wind went behind us and we had to go deep.  At that point we switched to wing-n-wing with the chute, and that did the trick.  We were able to stay with the fleet through the channel for the first time in a long time.  Mark thinks that this was our best running course through the channel in a long time.  We were able to carry the wing-n-wing up to the first mark (G1).

We dropped the chute about a minute too early, but then we promptly sailed into a hole that lasted all the way to Gull Point.  Everyone struggled in the same way.  After Gull Point the new buoy (the upwind mark) was dead upwind and the winds continued light and shifty.  The fast boats pulled away.  At times we were sailing pretty fast, at other times we struggled.  About halfway to the mark, the port tack was highly favored (of course we were on starboard at the time) so we sailed backwards for a little while, and that’s when we give up a reasonable amount of time.

We sailed on and finally rounded the mark (though I was a little closer to it than I wanted).  We flew the chute again and headed to G1 – slow going but we sailed well enough.  After we rounded Gull Point we saw that people seemed to be finishing instead of sailing the second upwind leg so we sailed on a decent reach for R2.  And then the wind died a few hundred yards from R2 (Tigress was just sitting in the hole trying to find – and they didn’t actually finish).  Those marks are almost always in a hole.  That’s the area where there are several different land effects.  We finally dropped the chute and finished on a close reach.

All-in-all, it was tough and slow sailing, but we finished and did our best.

We also finished 4th in the Spinnaker B Fleet Overalls (mainly because we sailed all three races in the series).

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