2006 Sunset – Race #4

May 10th - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Demitri, Frank, Jim and Reggie. When we checked the wind about 5:40pm we got ~250°. Later, just after PH-A started we got 235°. We measured the starting line as square to 245° so that indicated that the pin end was favored at the time but the wind might be shifting significantly. Just before our warning signal we measured the wind at ~225-230°, which meant the pin end was VERY favored. With about 1 minute to go we were on port heading toward the RC boat about 1/4 of the way past the pin. We tacked and started back toward the pin with Athena on our hip. We thought we are a bit early so didn't go as fast as we could and Athena sailed over the top of us. Meanwhile, Hitchhiker came in on port and tacked between us and the pin. That put us behind Hitchhiker and below Athena at the start - a horrible position to be in and we considered tacking immediately. Fortunately, however, both boats were over early and had to go back so although we were slowed a bit at first we got clean air pretty quickly. [Athena pulled a really smart move to go back - she immediately let both sails go and the boat stopped dead in the water. Once we sailed past she then simply re-trimmed her sails and gybed back to the line. SMART!]

As we started up the windward leg on starboard we weren't quite sure what the wind would do - it had already made a big shift to the south. That made it seem like we were on a header (and some boats were going north). But, if the wind was on a persistent shift south then it made sense to sail further. We decided to sail on for a ways. Avet was high on our hip in clear air with Wildcard tight on her hip in bad air. Teaser was to the right of Avet but not on her air (although she might have been on Wildcat's air). Incredibly, Wildcard hung there quite a while before tacking away (whereupon she quickly had to crash-tack back to starboard because of another boat!). Avet must have changed her sail trim or been effected by Teaser because she gradually fell down into our bad air and tacked to the north. At that point we would have liked to tack but couldn't cross Teaser so we fiddled with sail trim a bit to see if we could sail slightly higher to get enough in front of Teaser so we could tack. It worked and so we were able to tack north. Teaser went about 20 boatlengths further and tacked onto port as well.

With the wind at 230-235° and a bearing from SS Mark to E Mark of 248° that made the port tack the much longer one. So, we expected to be on port tack for quite a while and settled in. The wind was probably 12kts+ so we had everyone lined up on the windward rail. Hitchhiker was paralleling our course some 8-10+ boatlengths to leeward (in clear air) while Teaser was up on our hip about 20 boatlengths away. We were sailing slightly higher than Hitchhiker and the same speed or maybe slightly faster; and, we were sailing the same speed and just a smidge higher than Teaser. These were perfect conditions for Lizzie B so this didn't surprise us. Teaser must have fiddled with their sail trim though because after a while they stopped falling down behind us (they were still well to weather and in clear air).

Eventually, we got a bearing to E Mark of 212° while our course was 288°. That put us pretty much on the layline and if the wind went back north at all we would overstand. So, we tacked to starboard about 3/4 mile from E Mark. Teaser went maybe 8-10 boatlengths past our line and tacked as well. As we got closer to the mark we got a slight header. This meant we wouldn't lay the mark but since we were to the left of most of our fleet it didn't hurt too much (the gain from the shift compensating for the loss from the two additional tacks). By sailing a bit farther on port before she tacked onto starboard Teaser had gained on us slightly. As we came into E Mark our line was maybe 5-8 boatlengths down from the starboard-tack layline and we had one boat from the class ahead up on the layline but it looked like she would probably round right ahead of us. As we tacked to get up to the layline the PH-C boat had her spinnaker pull out of the bag and fill with water (trolling for shrimp?). This caused them to slow considerably and so we would have to sail around them. We decided to go to leeward and just barely made it past her without contact (things were so busy we aren't even sure which boat it was!).

After making it safely around E Mark we did a bearaway set (not very cleanly) and started down the leg. Things weren't as organized as they could have been and Teaser seemed to be getting a lot closer really quickly. We got things straigthened out and started concentrating on boatspeed and Teaser stopped gaining (she was slightly below our line and wouldn't have been able to sail through our lee anyway but that wasn't the point - we didn't want her gaining on us!). As we started working the waves we must have been doing a better job than Teaser as she started falling back. Behind her we could see boats in our class gybing to the north even though we were heading pretty much directly for the south end of the detached breakwater. We don't know what they could have been thinking! As we got closer to the breakwater the wind lightened slightly. There looked like there was slightly more wind to the north so instead of heading up toward LAX to build speed we decided to take a short hitch toward the flag before gybing back to starboard. As we came in to the breakwater on port, a large dark blue cruising boat was reaching in on port from the south and looking like it wouldn't give room. But, a quick hail by us alerted them to our presence and they gave room but ended up rounding ahead of us anyway. With no traffic to deal with, we decided to give the end of the breakwater a fairly wide berth - once biten (er.. bumped) twice shy!

We had a couple of Schock 35s right behind us as we rounded the south breakwater but we stayed high and they went through to leeward. We then turned down and winged out the jibtop. We sailed without incident most of the way to the turning mark in front of the CG station but just before we got to the two-length zone for the turning mark Powerplay (a Schock 35) came up on us from behind and started to go over the top. We luffed to defend and they turned down to go below us. Right after the turning mark they tried again and we had to luff to defend. This happened twice more before they finally they got the idea - we were NOT going to let them roll over us - and they then quickly sailed through to leeward. [Why they didn't just save us both time and trouble and do that in the first place is a real puzzler - we always thought they were smarter than that.] Anyway, we then sailed to the finish line and our fourth win of the season.