2005 Sunset Series – Race #6

May 25th - Crew for tonight's race was Dick, Jim, Art, Frank, Linda and Reggie. We started at the pin end with the entire class to windward. The boats on our windward hip were gradually giving each other bad air and so tacking away to the north. Finally, the only boat left on starboard with us was Creeper (oh yes, there was a new J/80, #6333, that had started two boat-lengths directly behind us and was sailing off to the south but they didn't appear to be sailing close-hauled and so were not a factor). Once Creeper tacked to the north we followed.

We stayed mostly in the middle of the course but as we approached EE mark the only boat to the north of us was Superstar, but she was some distance back. Creeper came in from the left just ahead of us and tacked ahead and slightly to weather, forcing us to tack onto port and go north. We went a short way north and tacked back onto starboard. Soon Creeper crossed just ahead and again tacked ahead and slightly to weather, forcing us back onto port tack. We sailed to what we thought was the starboard-tack layline and tacked back onto starboard. Blade Runner came out of the left-hand side and crossed well ahead to round the windward mark first. Creeper crossed just ahead and tacked pretty much directly upwind. Unfortunately, with the bad air from Creeper we couldn't quite make the mark and had to tack twice (and the first tack wasn't too good so we lost a bit of speed in that tack). We were the third boat in our class to round the windward mark, rounding just behind Creeper. We think Superstar was the next boat to round after us but she was a good way back.

We did a bear-away set and headed for the breakwater. Blade Runner was somewhere up ahead - we never saw them. Creeper was just ahead and we kind of followed them although we didn't jibe in sync with them. Superstar was behind and sailing about the same speed (usually they are clearly faster downwind but not tonight!). The J/80s behind us were coming up fast (the general rule is that if we can look back and see when they round the windward mark without binoculars they will finish ahead of us). Joy Ride came up alongside of us about 1/2 mile from the breakwater and cruised on through - she was sailing the same angle but was faster. Their asymetrical spinnaker is really big. What was interesting is that Joy Ride was sailing with 6 people while Avet usually sails with only 3 or 4. Avet wasn't too fast tonight but we noticed that Curt wasn't on board.

We rounded the breakwater not too far behind Joy Ride, but far enough that we weren't saving our time on her at that point. Blade Runner and Creeper were somewhere up ahead of them. Superstar was behind us but gaining fast. Unlike last week we were able to sail almost as fast as Joy Ride but with the lead that they had we needed to sail faster to correct out in front of them. The finish was short, at Burton Chase Park, and we were able to just save our time on Blade Runner and Creeper so Joy Ride was 1st, we were 2nd, Blade Runner was 3rd, Creeper was 4th and Superstar was 5th. Superstar needed to beat us by a couple of places to win the first mini-series so with tonight's 2nd place finish we end up as 1st in the first mini-series for 2005 (the first six races).

Last updated: May 31, 2005