May 19th - Crew for tonight's race was Dick, Art, Demitri, Frank, Reggie and Paul (a friend of Reggie's). We thought the right end of the starting line was favored so decided to start there. Most of the boats wanted the middle to left end so this was a good thing. Except, that El Gato Grande came barging in late right over the top of us. Fortunately, they were a bit early so even though we had to turn down slightly to avoid them we got a pretty good start at the RC boat end (we didn't bother to protest El Gato Grande).

We tacked over to port and went north almost immediately. There was quite a bit of difference between starboard and port tacks and the seas were very confused so we had the sails very full to punch through the chop. About 1/2 mile out we tacked onto port and were converging with Creeper and Creeper, both of whom had started over near the pin end and seemed to come out ahead as the wind went south slightly. Creeper tacked about 20-25 boat-lengths away (kind of a leebow position) while Avet passed behind us and tacked on our hip.

Creeper was pointing maybe 10 degrees higher than us and as a consequence were being stopped by the seas. We got much closer. Up on our hip, Avet was sailing about the same speed but 5-10 degrees higher. For some reason they could sail through the seas whereas we could not. Creeper rounded D mark first with us not far behind and Avet not far behind us. All three of us gybed over onto port soon after rounding with us on the north, Avet just south of us and Creeper quite a bit farther south.

Downwind Avet passed us almost immediately and sailed lower and faster to gradually pull farther and farther ahead. Creeper was about even with us but farther to the south. As we came into the detached breakwater Avet was basically out of sight ahead while Creeper was just astern of us.

We sailed to a shortened finish line at Burton Chase Park. Unlike last week, there wasn't much traffic and the inside portion was fairly straight forward.

Last updated: May 26, 2004