July 30th - We got wind of ~255° when we first checked coming out of the breakwater. Later, when we were sailing upwind before the start, we got wind of ~240°. With the wind coming up relatively late in the day we were concerned about covering the north side of the course. Just before our start, the wind started to swing south in a major way (heavily favoring the pin end). We decided to start at the pin and tack over onto port a short way out.

We got a so-so start with Creeper almost directly ahead of us. We had a couple of boats on our weather hip (Spirit and Crimson Star) so we footed off below Creeper into clear air, with our course about 185° (20° below what we saw in our upwind check before the start!!). About 0.5 nm up the leg the wind went even further south, Spirit and Crimson Star tacked onto port so we tacked as well. Creeper kept going on starboard for a while. We got a bit of a lift on port tack. After passing the center of the course we got a slight header and tacked back onto starboard. With the left shift just after the start we were ahead of the boats that went north at the start. Only Creeper, on our left, seemed an issue. As we approached Creeper we got a slight header and tacked onto port so we could lead them to the next shift. With seas and a slightly dying breeze port tack felt ugly (we went into power mode to bust through the chop but the boat did not feel alive). As we approached the starboard tack layline we started to get headed so tacked pretty much on the layline, anticipating a bit more swing to the north. Creeper tacked onto starboard directly in front of us and we pinched to get around the mark (better to go slow and not tack then make two unnecessary tacks). The next boat rounded almost 2 minutes behind us.

Downwind was interesting. We were able to sail almost as fast as Creeper but slightly lower. They then headed up to gain speed and disappeared off to the south. The chop made it difficult to keep the spinnaker full but behind us we could see Superstar motoring straight down the course (lower and a low faster than us because their mast doesn't swing as much as ours in the chop). We gybed to port to get between Superstar and the breakwater. Creeper eventually gybed as well but with their higher angles they simply reached behind us to the very north edge of the course. We gybed a couple of times more to stay in sync with the shifts. As we got closer to the breakwater the chop died so we could sail significantly lower, and started to hold our own with Superstar. Creeper made out by going north, but not enough to make up for their higher reaching angles and so rounded the breakwater less than 1 boatlength behind us.

We did well down the outer channel. Creeper should be faster but they don't have a reacher or jibtop so lost some ground to us. Also, they sailed over to the north side of the channel, out of the incoming tide. We kept going wing-and-wing past the turning mark to stay in the strongest tide and then headed up to reach to the finish mark. Creeper did almost the same thing but went farther in toward Fisherman's Village - close enough to be in the dead air near the shore (where they lost even more ground). We finished maybe 6-8 boatlengths ahead of Creeper for a 1st. Bandit also got a 1st so the MR Trophy race remains close.

Our win in race #16 gives us first place in PHRF B for the third mini-series. The fourth and final mini-series starts on August 6th.

Last updated: August 6, 2003