2006 Sunset – Race #5

May 17th - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Demitri, Frank, Linda and Reggie (Jim is off in Palm Springs for a week). The wind was really light when we came out and we only sailed upwind a short ways as we didn't want to get trapped too far from the starting line to get back in time. The wind was ~220° when we intially checked but we later got a reading as far north as 230°. The RC set the line square to 210° and as there wasn't time they couldn't adjust it (they seemed to us to have gotten out a bit later than usual). That meant the RC boat was favored by at least 10° and maybe as much as 20°. So, our plan was to start as close to the RC boat as we could. As it turned out the wind came up a bit just before our start and most of the boats didn't anticipate their boatspeed well and so had to sail down the line to avoid being over early - leaving a nice big hole for us right next to the RC boat.

Since the wind was light we figured we should pay as much or more attention to pressure as direction. With the light wind we also had to concentrate on keeping our weight low, to increase heel. We only sailed a short way on starboard before tacking over to port. The reason we tacked was primarily because we found ourselves sailing 15-20° lower than the boats to the south of us. We don't know if this was a shift or lack of pressure or a fluke or what but it seemed appropriate to tack to the north, where there appeared to be as much or more wind.

As we went north the wind was spotty but we seemed to be in a bit more wind then the boats who had tacked to the north immediately after starting (Teaser being the closest to us). These boats must have started late (behind us) at the RC boat. As we went north we seemed to get a bit more breeze. Most of the boats to our south tacked over onto port tack soon after we did. Intially, they all looked like they were ahead of us but as we had slightly more breeze most of them gradually fell down behind us. Eventually we had a course of 285-290° with a bearing to the mark of ~215°. Since we seemed to be in good breeze we decided to take advantage of that to get out closer to S Mark. We knew we weren't at the starboard-tack layline but thought sailing in pressure was more important (plus, if there was any further shift to the north we didn't want to overstand).

As we went out on starboard tack there were a number of boats we were converging with. The first was Hitchhiker and we were about even with them but they turned down to pass behind us (it turns out they were OCS but we didn't know that at the time - since we weren't close to being over we hadn't paid much attention to the numbers hailed by the RC at the start). The next was Wildcard and they passed cleanly ahead of us. Another J/80 (Avet?) tacked well ahead and to leeward instead of crossing. They later tacked to the north and crossed ahead of us. Frankly, they seemed to be tacking on every little shift, which isn't particularly fast when the wind is really light as you are always sailing below your optimum boatspeed. Our tactic was to tack less and concentrate more on boatspeed and it seemed to pay off as we seemed to pull out on the boats that were to the north of us even though we didn't seem to have more wind (at least not by the ripples on the water).

We got to S Mark first with Avet maybe 8-10 boatlengths behind us and Wildcard not far behind them. We think the next boat was Hitchhiker but they were a bit further back. We did a pretty good bear-away set but in the light air getting the spinnaker to fly was a bit difficult. Avet was right behind us and on our line or a tad higher. Fairly quickly they were in a position to sail over us so we decided to gybe. Unfortunately, Avet saw our preparations and gybed to cover. Since they were going to sail over us anyway we sailed a bit lower to let them go by and then came up a bit to gain speed and sail in their track. There seemed to be more wind in the middle of the course then at the edges, but it did get somewhat lighter as we approached H Mark. Hitchhiker had either done a gybe set or gybed immediately after setting as they were farther north. They seemed to be slower than Avet and us. Athena had gone north and they also seemed to be slower over there. Clearly, the breeze seemed to be a bit stronger in the center of the course, although it did seem to us to be getting slightly lighter the closer we got to shore.

As we got in the vicinity of H Mark there was plenty of Cruising Class traffic so to avoid that both Avet and we gybed back over to starboard. At that point Wildcard came in from the south and crossed ahead of us (and maybe Avet as well, we don't recall). In any event, Avet and Wildcard sailed hot angles and criss-crossed the course ahead of us with multiple gybes. We sailed to what we thought was a good layline to the south end of the detached breakwater and gybed (it turned out to be a perfect angle!). Athena had been to our north and crossed behind us and then also gybed onto port. As we came around the breakwater the order was Avet, Wildcard, us, all fairly close, and then Athena a ways back. We got lucky because there was no Cruising Class traffic. The only traffic at all was Bandit (Santana 20) just ahead of us and we passed to leeward of them almost immediately after rounding the end of the detached breakwater. We figured we needed to close up with the two J/80s in the entrance channel because they usually have good speed on the reach in the main channed and can pull out.

We sailed across to the northern edge of the entrance channel and then went wing-and-wing. There seemed to be a bit more pressure on the north side. We closed up quite a bit with both Avet (ahead of us) and Wildcard (on our right) while Athena stayed about even (also on our right). Avet rounded the turning mark several boatlengths ahead while Wildcard rounded even with us but off to our right by a couple of boatlengths. Down the main channel the wind was flukey but we had good concentration and played it fairly well. Getting and keeping boat speed along there is always hard, especially when it is light. However, our crew seems to have it worked out fairly well. For the first half of the main channel we were able to stay even with Wildcat but Avet pulled out slightly. Athena must have had different wind behind us because she fell well back. For the second half we were able to out-trim Wildcat and rolled over her (she was still more than a boatlength to our right). Avet lost some time sailing around a Santana 20 (Maude) and so we were able to close back up a bit. With the Santana 20 ahead of us we weren't going to be able to sail through her lee so we simply concentrating on finishing with our bow as close to their transom as we could get (which wasn't actually that close). Wildcat finished close behind us with Athena quite a ways behind them.

As we finished we timed how much Avet was ahead of us and figured we either tied her or she beat us by one second. However, it later turned out that at least one member of our crew is mathematically challenged as in fact we beat Avet by a whooping 12 seconds on corrected time. I think we all felt very satisfied to have done so well in really tough sailing conditions. We look forward to having Jim back next week but frankly we were happy his replacement tonight weighs 60+ lbs less!