|
2006 Sunset – Race #11 |
July 5th - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Bill Herrschaft, Frank, Jim, Linda and Reggie. This was Bill's first race with us this season and we hope to talk him into coming back again later in the year. When checking the wind about 5:30pm we got the wind at ~233°. When we checked the line it was square to 235-240°. That made the pin end slightly favored. We checked the wind again about 7-8 minutes before our start and got 230° one time and 225° another. That meant the pin end was pretty well favored. In the start two ahead of us one boat started on port near the pin end, ducked the first starboard tack boat and then crossed all the rest. Yes, it seemed that the pin end was favored!
We started all by ourselves toward the left end of the middle third of the starting line (or maybe slightly closer to the pin end). All the rest of the boats in our class were to our right. As we went out on starboard tack our heading was ~200°+, which we figured was a lift. A couple of boats (Teaser and someone else?) tacked onto port and went north immediately. The boats farther up the course on our tack seemed to be sailing lower so going north this early didn't seem to make sense to us. We had good boatspeed and pointing and most of the boats on our weather hip gradually fell down into our bad air and tacked away.
We didn't want to get too far off to the south so on a slight header we tacked onto port, passing fairly close to J Mark. As we came across the course we seemed to be making out well on the other boats. A few boats had gone farther south than us and tacked over onto port on our weather hip. With a bit more breeze we seemed to be higher and faster than them. The boats that went north initially didn't seem to have made out well at all. As we got toward the center of the course the wind started to get lighter. The boats well to windward of us seemed to have good breeze and were heeled over. But, the boats farther north seemed to have less breeze. At one point we got a bit more wind (but still down from the windier conditions) and decided to tack even though we knew we were well short of the starboard-tack layline. As we went back out on starboard tack we seemed to be on a lift, though it might have been a velocity lift. The boats behind us all seemed to be falling into our wake (not sure if they were but that is the way it appeared to us). With two more tacks we were the first boat in our class at D Mark.
We did a bearaway set and after avoiding some traffic gybed to port. Behind us we could see three J/80s round and start to catch us. Athena went off to the south on starboard tack quite some ways. Joy Ride and Wildcard fairly quickly gybed over to port and followed us. Wildcard sailed high and worked there way north while Joy Ride worked the middle of the course, gybing back and forth several times. After avoiding some Cruising Class traffic in the vicinity of S Mark we gybed onto starboard thinking maybe it was a layline to the breakwater but even if it wasn't it would be good to get in front of the closest boat in our class - Joy Ride, who was slightly to the south of us. As it turned out, we got a bit more breeze, were able to catch some good waves and sailed directly to the breakwater. The next boat in our class was Joy Ride, maybe one minute or less back at that point.
We had some Crusing Class traffic beteen the detached breakwater and the south breakwater but were able to avoid any entanglements. With some bigger Cruising Class boats thinking of sailing over the top of us we sailed a ways toward the NO SAIL buoys on the north side of the entrance channel before turning down and going wing-and-wing. At that point we were 2/3 or 3/4 of the way from the south breakwater to the north breakwater and had clear air. We kept our air pretty clean and didn't try to fight for the line of NO SAIL buoys. As we came to the turning mark we had a Schock 35 (Perfect Circle) and J/35 (Fast Lane) just barely overlapped inside of us. Because of that we sailed a short way past the turning mark before turning to down the main channel. We had no boats directly to windward of us or in danger of passing so stayed below the line of center channel buoys to maximize speed. When we saw Joy Ride gaining on one of the boats behind and above us we sailed up toward the line of center channel buoys to be sure they wouldn't be able to sail over the top of us and pass us. We wound up finishing some 30 seconds or so in front of Joy Ride and wound up 1st. Although we didn't see them, Windfall wasn't too far back and wound up 3rd, only two seconds behind Joy Ride. Wildcard was the next boat but was a ways back.