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2006 Sunset – Race #7 |
May 31st - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Demitri, Frank, Jim and Reggie. We decided to start at the RC boat end of the line as we thought it was favored by 5° or more. We came in with one boat above us, Mayhem. We luffed them up to clear a space for us but they were very slow to respond. At the start, we were more than 3/4 boatlength bow-out on Mayhem right at the flag and with decent speed. As the gun was about to go off Mayhem simply turned down in order to go below the flag. They were moving much slower than us. However, there wasn't more than 3-5 feet between our lifelines and the flag - certainly not enough room for Mayhem to go in there. We don't know how they were able to keep from hitting us but they did. As they came down to go below the flag they just missed hitting the windward corner of our transom. Perhaps someone needs to explain the leeward/windward right-of-way rules to them!
There were no boats near us to leeward. Most of the boats started down toward the pin end of the starting line. We stayed on starboard for 1/2 mile or so and then near J Mark tacked back toward the center of the course. This turned out to be a BIG mistake. The shift tonight was persistent and went left virtually the whole race. So, all the boats on our left made out when we went right. We were pretty much in the middle of our fleet but the 2 or 3 boats that went farther toward the south corner made big gains over the rest of the fleet. Fortunately, no one banged the south corner and really killed us. But, we were the second boat around the windward mark (B Mark), a ways behind 702, a J/80. Athena and Avet were right behind us.
The J/80s are so much faster than us downwind that our performance on the upwind leg pretty much determines the outcome of the race. Once we have sailed a short ways down the downwind leg, we figure that if we can look back with binoculars and read the sail numbers of any J/80s then those boats have probably got us beat. So, you can imagine our dismay when 702 rounded well ahead of us and Athena and Avet were immediately on our transom, almost overlapped with us and each other. But, we figured the best we could do was try and go as fast as possible and hope for a middle-of-the-fleet finish. 702 gybed and went north immediately after rounding. Athena started to sail through our lee but then gybed to the north (we later learned they went north in order to cover 702). Avet then proceded to sail to leeward of us. She then gybed to the north but didn't go too far and gybed back sailing a hotter angle. On the far side of the course it looked like the north side didn't pay off for Athena or 702.
The last third of the downwind was quite interesting. There were three J/80s in the middle of the course in a gybing duel (Avet, Joy Ride and 702). They were each reaching back and forth and continually forcing the other boats to gybe. Occasionally, they would sail over to where we were on the south of the course but mostly they were hassling each other. The wind picked up on the north side of the course which allowed Athena to reach into the breakwater well ahead of the rest of us. We don't recall the exact order but we think Joy Ride rounded ahead and Avet and 702 rounded just behind us.
Ahead of us Joy Ride had somewhat clear air down the middle of the entrance channel. 702 was right behind us and trying to sail over the top so we sailed over to the north side of the entrance channel. As we recall Avet went down the middle of the entrance channel with Joy Ride. 702 tried to sail over the line of NO SAIL buoys but we hailed them that the rules don't allow that so they didn't go in there. They wound up stuck behind us in the entrance channel because when they tried to sail through our lee they couldn't quite make it.
After the turning mark things really changed. Whereas we had been fairly close to Joy Ride and Avet (possibly saving our time), they started to pull out on us rapidly. We had some traffic and 702 was able to sail over the top of us. Two more J/80s had caught up with us and now passed us, although they weren't too far ahead at the finish. And, Wildcard caught up with us and almost passed us to leeward. However, at the last minute we got a puff to finish just ahead of her. After corrections, we wound up 4th behind Athena, Joy Ride and Avet, in that order. 702 and The Doc finished ahead of us but close enough that we were able to correct out.
The first three boats and six of the first eight boats were J/80s. This certainly seemed to be their night. We've been very suprised that the J/80s haven't done better so far this year but that seems to have changed. Some of the J/80s that finished ahead of us tonight were even farther on the wrong side of the windshift then we were. Clearly, they are getting back into the swing of things with both boat speed and strategy. We were disappointed at having our winning streak broken but finishing 4th has a positive side as we can now stop holding our breath with the suspense. We can't wait for next week and a chance to possibly start another winning streak.