2006 Sunset – Race #6

May 24th - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Demitri, Frank, Jim and Reggie. On the way out to the starting area the diesel conked out - but we figured "no problem" as there was plenty of wind. So much wind, in fact, that although we put up the #1 genoa to sail out the entrance channel we switched to the #2 before leaving the shelter of the detached breakwater. We measured the starting line square to 235° and the wind just before the PH-A start at ~225-230°. That meant the pin end was favored but neither the PH-A nor PH-B fleets started there - strange! For our start both Avet and Athena were setting up to start right at the pin. Plus, Mayhem seemed to be angling to start there as well. That left a big hole right in the middle of the line - which we decided to use for a nice clean start.

We started near the middle or left-hand end of the middle third of the line with plenty of clear air and good boatspeed. There was a J/80 on our hip (not sure but maybe Joyride) with Teaser just to the right of them. With the wind a bit lighter at our start we were slightly underpowered but adjusted the sails for point-mode and were able to force the J/80 to tack north. With Teaser to weather we stayed in point-mode until they gradually fell behind us (at that point they decided they really wanted to go south and so reached down through our bad air). With a heading of ~202°+ we knew we were on a lift and so decided to keep sailing at least until we got back into the heavier wind we could see farther out. Tonight was characterized by some pretty radical changes in wind speed, requiring some pretty big sail trim adjustments. Before the start we had the sails twisted off to reduce heel. At the start we had less wind and had to power the sails back up. During the windward leg we had several occasions to adjust the twist and sail depth as the wind built and then moderated.

We stayed on starboard tack until we were well into the heavier air. The boats to our left had been tacking and passing behind us so we decided to tack onto port and get over toward the middle of the course. Just before tacking we had a heading of 210-215°; after tacking we had a heading of 280-285°. This was clearly the closer tack to the mark. Plus, it looked as if we had made out on all the boats that went north right after the start. We continued on port tack, ducking Superstar, an old friend now in PHRF C - the class that started 5 minutes ahead of us. Soon after ducking Superstar we got headed 20° to a new heading of 300° and decided this was a shift we couldn't ignore. Soon after tacking onto starboard we crossed ahead of Superstar, demonstrating clearly the benefit of tacking on the shifts! The wind dropped and we had to ease off the sails to get enough power to plow through the heavy seas. After two more tacks we were the first boat to round D Mark. [This required some pinch-mode tactics because with the lighter wind we almost misjudged the layline for D Mark.] We had a big lead on the boats behind and don't really know which boats rounded next behind us.

We had a decent bear-away set and didn't go too far before gybing onto port tack - whereupon we were able to head pretty much directly at the detached breakwater. Some of the boats behind (well back!) didn't gybe and kept heading south. There didn't seem to be any more wind over there so this didn't make sense to us at the time (more later!). As we got farther down the course the wind lightened and so we had to reach up slightly - meaning we would have to gybe to get to the end of the detached breakwater. Avet had gone north behind us and was much faster as the wind lightened. Joyride had somehow caught up on the south side and when she reached over near us was clearly gaining fast. Avet reached over to the south of us and then came up behind us. Although she could have stayed on our air (and gone slow) she heated it up a bit and went north of us. She then had an ugly-looking gybe, due to lighter air it appeared. We sailed past her line, gybed and looked incredibly ugly ourselves. The seas were coming at the perfect angle to knock the wind out of the spinnaker and keep it from filling!. [We never saw Avet again so we're not sure exactly what happened to her after that.] But, as we got closer to the detached breakwater there was Windfall, a boat we hadn't seen all night and we thought was way back in our fleet. It seemed the boats that went south had made out quite well. We rounded the end of the detached breakwater a ways back from Windfall, the 3rd or 4th boat in our fleet (we knew Joyride and Windfall were ahead of us and thought we saw Teaser as well).

There was a lot of traffic between the end of detached breakwater and the end of the south breakwater but we successfully negotiated it, even managing to pull even with Windfall. The entrance channel didn't seem to have much wind and there seemed to be less and less as you got closer to the Coast Guard docks. There seemed to be a few more ripples on the left so we decided to hug the NO SAIL buoys on the north side. We stayed high in going over there to convince Ripple to go below us instead of over the top. We had one heck of a time sailing down the line of NO SAIL buoys. At one point, getting the boats outside of us to give enough room for a J/24 (Take Five with friends Suzie Taylor and Werner Horn) on our inside was tough (looks of "discussion" between the boats). There was a time when we even tried to slow the boat down so we wouldn't be forced to sail outside the boat ahead (better to be slightly slower and right behind the boat ahead then trapped outside - allowing space for a boat from behind to stick their nose in!).

We rounded the turning mark just behind Twister and right ahead of Ripple. With a bunch of boats fighting to go high (including the leading Martin 242, Trolleycar, sailed by good friends Bill Petersen and Peter Stazicker) we decided to take the low road. Joyride wasn't too far behind us and tried to go over the top by going high. But, when the boats above us all had to head down for the shortened finish line at Burton Chase Park we were able to keep our speed up and stay ahead. We finished maybe 30 seconds ahead of Joyride. We figured we were at least 2nd and hopefully 1st, depending on whether there were any boats from our class ahead of us. It turns out there weren't and we ended up winning. Yeah!

Sailing in the entrance channel tonight was as tough as we've ever seen it. There was no wind and boats were so close together you probably could have walked from the north breakwater to the south breakwater. Windfall rounded the tip of the south breakwater just inside of us and yet she finished 22 minutes behind us! The difference was she tried to go down the middle of the entrance channel while we stayed on the extreme north edge (we were the 1st or 2nd boat in from the line of NO SAIL buoys for most of the leg). That turned out to make all the difference. Of course with no wind the diesel wouldn't start after the race so we had to sail slowly to our dock. What a night to have engine troubles! Its nice to win but by the time we got to the dock we were glad the race was over.