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2006 Sunset – Race #12 |
July 12th - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Demitri, Frank, Jim, Linda and Reggie. When we sailed upwind before the start we got a pretty steady wind direction of ~250°. The line had been set square to ~240° so that made the right-hand end favored. But, when we checked the wind about 15 minutes before our start it had gone south to 235-240°. We decided to favor the pin end at the start but since most boats were up at the RC boat end we wound up as the left-most boat in about the middle of the line. We figured that at the start the wind was probably 240° and so the starting line was fairly square. We had quite a few boats to our immediate right, on our windward hip.
After the start we had a heading of ~205-210°, which we figured was a slight header. Unfortunately, by starting where we did we weren't able to tack over unto port, as we would have liked to do. Athena was 4 or 5 boats up from us and in bad air so she only went a short distance on starboard before tacking away. Teaser was the next boat up from us so we tried to work our way up in front of her. Just up from her was Mayhem, who was sailing quite high and fast. There was a J/80 that was in Teaser's bad air and tacked away soon after the start.
Teaser was doing quite well with us. She would fall down slightly below our course but then take a big scallop to windward to get back up to weather. However, the continual scalloping didn't pay off and they eventually started to fall behind us. At that point they tacked over unto port and had to take a big duck to avoid Mayhem. We felt that we were on a slight lift at that point and so went a short ways further before tacking. We easily would have crossed Mayhem but she tacked at the same time we did.
We wound up on port tack with Mayhem directly abeam of us 4-6 boatlengths away. Hitchhiker was just astern of her (presumably just above her line and therefore in clear air). There was just enough wind so we had everybody up on the rail. Nevertheless, both Mayhem and Hitchhiker seemed to be sailing as high or higher than us and slightly faster. We didn't understand the significance of this at the time (more later!). We had a heading of ~275° so this seemed to us to be the correct tack to be on. However, as we got to the north side of the course Athena crossed ahead of us. She had made out well by going to the north early. After two more tacks we came into E Mark on port tack. We could see Teaser going to the starboard-tack layline and she seemed to be sailing higher than us. Athena was the first boat to the mark with Teaser close behind her. There was a gap to us and then another gap to the next boats behind us (not sure which boats were next but we think Mayhem and Hitchhiker should have been not too far back).
After doing a bearaway set we continued on starboard tack. Initially, we seemed to be able to sail the same speed but just slightly lower than Teaser. Athena was quite close to her. However, it seemed like we stopped gaining. About halfway down the leg Teaser and Athena gybed onto port and went a short ways to our left before gybing back to starboard tack. At about the same time Wildcard went reaching behind us over to the north. We weren't able to keep track of her and aren't quite sure where she went but think it was north of us. As we came into the breakwater, Hitchhiker came in from the north on starboard tack. She must have gybed to the north soon after rounding and had caught up with us nicely. We were on port tack and were just able to pass ahead of her. So at the breakwater, the two J/80s (Athena and Wildcard) were probably first followed by Teaser and then us and then Hitchhiker. Based on what happened later, Windfall must have been fairly close behind Hitchhiker.
With not much traffic and the tide coming in we decided to simply head down the middle of the entrance channel. Hitchhiker was behind us and aiming to sail to our left but we didn't think she would be able to catch up to us (she is slightly lighter and almost two feet longer on the waterline but has slightly less sail area). However, she sailed right by us less than a boatlength away! That certainly shouldn't have happened so we checked the kelp window and sure enough we had one long strand. We got that off with our kelp-line (it took a couple of tries) but in the meantime Windfall had pulled up even with us. She is almost 6 feet longer on the waterline and has 40% more sail area but weighs twice as much. We expected them to be faster than us and sure enough they were. It didn't make any sense to mess around with them since we owed them almost a minute in time and so we didn't. They went over the top of us and then we stuck to their transom to the shortened finish line at Burton Chase Park.
Teaser was obviously higher and faster on the second half of the upwind leg and was slightly faster downwind (which she should be but seldom is). That makes us wonder when we hooked the kelp that we removed in the entrance channel. There is some thought that we could have caught the kelp while sailing upwind on port tack. At the time, Mayhem and Hitchhiker seemed to be unusually fast. But then we seemed to be catching Teaser right after setting the spinnaker. A single strand of kelp is only worth a few tenths of a knot when the wind is not light. We could have had it most of the race and only noticed it when the wind got light in the entrance channel. Or, we could have picked it up as we were rounding the detached breakwater and entering the entrance channel - when we all would have been concentrating on getting the spinnaker down and cleaning up the boat. We will never know!