2005 Sunset Series – Race #10

June 22nd - Crew for tonight's race was Art, Demitri, Frank, Jim, Reggie and Reid Smythe, a midshipman from the US Naval Academy (in town visiting his parents in Culver City). We went for a start at the pin end. At the start, Diavola, the new Rocket 22, was just to our left and Avet, a J/80, was just to our right. We went out a ways on starboard tack. Initially, we were in pinch-mode to try and force Avet to tack to the north. Once they tacked away we went into speed-mode to try and roll over the top of Diavola. Once that happened we were by ourselves heading south.

We didn't want to get too far into the south corner so on a slight header we tacked onto port. Port tack was really nowhere near as fast because of the seas. To keep any kind of speed up we had to sail "fat." Soon after tacking, we passed behind Superstar, who apparently must have started at the RC boat with good speed. Next, Insanity was about to cross ahead on starboard but tacked 3 or 4 boatlengths ahead and to leeward, just enough to lead us toward the north but not give us bad air. Soon after we saw Creeper come out of the north and cross well behind us. As we approached B mark on port tack Insanity crossed a couple of boat-lengths ahead of us and rounded B mark and did a really good spinnaker set. But our fleet was going to BB mark, not B, so that took them out of the competition.

We rounded BB mark first in our class, as we caught up with the tail-enders in the PHRF B fleet. Athena, a J/80 owned by Larry Travis with Roy Wilson on board,.was not far behind us (they had gone south with Superstar and Creeper and done quite well). We think Creeper was a ways behind Athena. Superstar and Avet were even farther back. We were looking pretty good except for Athena, who we expected would pass us fairly quickly. The wind was really light so we stayed high, partly for boat speed and partly because Athena was to leeward and holding us up. Creeper was sailing lower and going like gangbusters. Superstar was also sailing lower but was not quite so fast as Creeper. Avet gybed to the north right after rounding and she was so far away it was hard to guage how she was doing. Athena tried to gybe away but had some trouble so she fell back and that allowed us to sail a tad lower.

It seemed like there was less wind in on the beach so we gybed to the north. That turned out to be smart as we seemed to pick up slightly more breeze. Creeper was slightly ahead of us and for awhile it looked like we might pass her but she was able to get some wind and stay ahead. Diavola was threatening to pass us but we were a bit faster. Athena had recovered from her spinnaker problems but wasn't quite able to pass us. Avet had caught more wind to the north and was MILES ahead. So, at the breakwater it was Avet far out in front, followed by Creeper, us, Diavola, Athena and then Superstar, we think.

Diavola rolled over the top of us between the two breakwaters. Since they owe us 30 sec/mi we just let them go. Athena was right on our transom so we paid more attention to making sure they didn't roll us. We didn't have much traffic and essentially sailed straight from the end of the south breakwater to the turning mark. With the wind from the south we didn't have to worry about the hole under the apartment buildings to the north. With a short finish line at Burton Chase Park we were able to hold off Athena to finish 4th and correct out to take 3rd. For some reason we didn't have the speed downwind that we have had some races.

Last updated: June 27, 2005