Weds Night Series 1 Race 1

Finally time to race. It's been a long winter of sanding an body putty. I'll explain the off season exploits in another post.


We were slightly better prepared than we were for the first race last year. There was a nice Westerly (15kts) at 5pm. Thunderstorms lurked about, skirting the race course as they traveled to the North. By the start of the race, the breeze freshened to 18-20 kts. We planned to sail with the 150% the boat felt pretty good once I put on enough backstay. I have to remember to tighten the forestay. It seems too loose.

The wind shifted 60 degrees right during the A1 sequence; RC postponed. We took this opportunity to switch to the 100%. One problem, it wasn't on the boat. Ends up I left it in my garage. Oh, well, back to the 150% the sail is pretty flat. We'll twist it off and suffer through the first leg.

At the start it was clear the 150% was the right sail. We were the weather most boat, rolled Meanie and Stryker. We followed a header to the left while most of the fleet tacked right. We tacked on top of Slice as they peeled off. We were in pretty good shape when we got to the top mark. It looked like we'd lay it and be first around. The breeze lighten and went left. so much for laying the mark. Kelly and his new mainsail rounded just ahead of us.

We followed Kelly downwind; had to clear our air after the leeward mark. Kelly made the finish without tacking. He beat us over the line by 5-6 seconds. We managed to old off the boats behind us for 2nd place. Not bad for the first night.

Crew:

Teddy
Jack Buzzi
Neil
Bob
Eric
Craig
Charlotte
me

rig:

36-33