Still catching up:
Spring Series #3 (SPIN) — June 1, 2011
Racing was cancelled for Wednesday evening because of the terrible tragedy on Memorial Day (Monday, May 30) at the Yacht Club. A boat exploded after fueling injuring 6 and killing one person. The club had a very tasteful memorial service on June 1 instead of racing.
Brier Patch #1 and #2 (SPIN) — Make-up — June 5, 2011
A very good day for racing. There were two make-up spinnaker races. The first race was a relatively short W/L course, 2x around. The winds were pretty light and we struggled to keep up on the downwind legs. You’ll see from the corrected times that we were not as close to the B Fleet boats as we would have wanted.
So in the first race we were 6th in our fleet (Infinity didn’t fly a chute, so we beat them) and 12th out of 16 in the total fleet. The winds picked to about 10 knots for the 2nd race, and it was 2 1/2 times around. We got stuffed at the start and had to tack to port right away to clear our air. That turned out to be a good thing. The port tack was heavily favored and we arrived at the first mark with the rest of the fleet. We sailed well downwind both times (the added breeze allowed to sail a little deeper) and finished upwind. Of course, on the 2nd and 3rd upwind legs most of the rest of the fleet also sailed the long port tack, so we no longer had an advantage. Infinity dropped out, but we beat the J-22 boat-to-boat and on time to finish 5th in the B Fleet, and 10th out of 14 in the overall. Look at the corrected times for the 2nd race and you’ll see that we finished only 21 seconds behind Outlaw – and that’s a good thing.
Thanks to our smart crew: Judy, Andy, Paul Walkama (on loan from Lady Jane), Dave Hyland, and Chet LaPrice (who did difficult duty in the sewer during takedowns).
Hilbrich Electric #1 (JAM) — June 8, 2011
Second place last night! Standard W/L M—>R14. Winds were light (6-10) at the start. We were at the line at the start, tacked over to port and skimmed the back of the fleet to get into clear air in the middle of the bay. The gambit worked because there was slight bit more air straight down the middle (and having the pole helped again). We were 3rd around the mark. We stayed on port for a while and then tacked to starboard to get back to the center because we still believed that the center was slightly favored. KEYA, who rounded after us, passed us on that tack. They were a little ahead of us when they tacked over to port. At almost the same time, there was 45-degree wind shift and we saw KEYA sailing directly to the mark, so we tacked over and sailed for the mark. The wind picked up to 10-15 and we mainly lifted to the mark.
All the boats who had sailed to the north side of the bay were too high and had to sail a much longer distance to get back. If the race had been longer some of them might have caught up with us, but that was not the case. We ended up a little above M (KEYA was lower on the course and sailed straight across the line). We sailed almost to the starboard layline and then tacked over. That put us on starboard and we sailed a relatively short distance to the line (and stuffed Smokin J who was on port). We crossed right after we flopped back to port. Then there was a little scuffle with Smokin J who flopped to starboard at the last second – I don’t know why, I thought they were making the mark on their line. It was a little tense, but we didn’t hit ‘em.
In any case, sometimes you’re just lucky to be in the right place to take advantage of a shift!
Thanks to our crew: Judy, Kim, Andy!
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Look for more catching up tomorrow.
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Red Herring Sailing 