April 21st - Crew for tonight's race was Dick, Jim, Art, Frank, Demitri, Linda and Reggie. We got a wind direction of ~235-240° when we first checked coming out of the south entrance of the breakwater with maybe 12-13 knots of breeze. We initially set up to use the #2 jib. However, as it got closer to our warning signal it looked like the boats up the course were not heeling over as much as expected. The wind seemed to be moderating slightly and we feared it might go even a tad lighter. Plus, the wind was going south, which made the pin end favored (the line was square to 240°). With the wind coming up relatively late in the day we were concerned about covering the north side of the course. We decided we should try to start at the pin and tack over onto port a short way out.

Just before the warning signal we decided to switch to the #1 genoa. This turned out to be a smart decision but it wasn't executed terribly well. We have two sail bags marked #1 - one for the North 3DL #1 and one for the jib top/reacher we use in the channel. Well, the wrong bag came on deck and the jib top was hoisted before we realized that we had the wrong sail. Quick crew-work got the right #1 up but we were 5 seconds or more late for our start. Plus, we would up starting in the center of the line instead of at the favored pin end.

With all the confusion we weren't sure where most of the other boats in our fleet started, though we think Avet was closest to the pin. We had to duck a couple of starboard tack boats to get clear air and started on port tack heading toward the north on a course of ~270°. Just after the start Creeper and Avet were to the south of us, also on port tack. Spirit was between those boats and us but slightly further back. Crimson Star was on our weather quarter maybe 4-5 boatlengths away. Creeper had a #2 up and we could see that we were as fast or maybe a tad faster and sailing higher. However, as we sailed up the course the wind went south so we didn't really gain much on Creeper and Avet, Spirit had fallen into Creeper's bad air and tacked away.

Just over halfway out to DD mark we decided to bite the bullet and head south toward the middle of the course. At the time we tacked we had been lifted from ~270° at the start to ~252° - bad for us as the northern most boat in our fleet but fortunately both Creeper and Avet had come with us so we weren't hurt too badly against them. After coming back to the center of the course we tacked back to port on a mini-header. Then, we overstood the layline pretty nicely and so came into the windward mark with LOTS of boatspeed. We rounded the windward mark first with Creeper, Avet and Superstar close behind us (we think in that order).

Downwind all three of the boats behind us are faster with Avet, a J/80, the fastest. They are terribly slow upwind but make up for it with blinding speed downwind so if we can seem them behind us at the start of the downwind leg we figure they will pass us. This week they sailed right through our lee! After a short gybe toward the middle of the course to clear our air (both Creeper and Superstar were positioned to roll over the top of us and take our wind), we came into the breakwater overlapped inside of Superstar with Creeper just astern. With more speed Superstar went around ahead of us with Creeper gaining an weather overlap as we passed along the detached breakwater. We ended up sailing down the middle of the outer channel, trying to keep our air clean so Superstar wouldn't get so far ahead that we couldn't correct over them. Creeper was using their #2 in the channel so wasn't as issue (we don't know what their problem was but it must have been pretty serious to use the #2 down the channel!).

We wound up finishing close enough behind Superstar to correct over them. Avet was so far ahead they weren't visible among all the other boats so we wound up second. It felt good to be out on the water on Wednesday night again but it looks like the crew of Avet has finally gotten serious about racing on Wednesday nights and so they are going to be the boat to beat in our class this year.

Last updated: April 23, 2004