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2006 Sunset – Race #13 |
July 19th - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Demitri, Frank, Jim and Reggie. Before the start we got a wind direction of ~240°. The starting line was square to ~245° so that meant the pin end was slightly favored. Up the course it seemed as if the boats all the way to the north had slightly less wind. With the intermittent cloud cover we figured there might be more (and slightly different) wind under the clouds, especially the darker ones. We considered whether the wind might build, in which case the #2 was called for but in the end decided to stick with the #1 genoa. The wind was probably 11-13 kts but the seas were relatively small for that windspeed. The three classes that started ahead of us all seemed to favor the RC boat end of the starting line, presumably so they could tack onto port and head toward the north. We checked the wind again and got 225-230° so decided to go for the pin end. However, a lot of our fleet had figured this out as well and so there were five or six boats down at that end. We got a clean start with no one just to our right and four or five boats to leeward but more than two boatlengths away.
Just after the start it seemed that we were sailing an average or slightly lifted heading of 205-210° on starboard tack (at least lifted from our last wind check before the start). Windfall was just to our right and Teaser was the next boat up (she probably started right at the RC boat). Avet must have got closed out over at the pin because right after the start she passed well behind us and tacked onto starboard pretty much dead astern (but far enough back to be in clear air).
Our idea before the start had been to favor the north but we couldn't cross Windfall or Teaser. Plus, since everyone was still on starboard with us there was no danger of someone getting a big benefit from being farther north than us. It took a while but Windfall started to fall behind us into our bad air and tacked away. We kept going for a while but since we didn't want to risk going past the port-tack layline we tacked on what we thought was a slight header. We crossed in front of Teaser, who kept going south a ways farther.
We aren't sure what happened but after the tack we were sailing ~265-270°. Either we tacked through 60° (not possible!?!) or we got a 10° windshift to the left just as we tacked. That put us on a course only a couple of degrees below D Mark. Teaser was on our windward hip sailing the same speed or a tad faster but lower. Soon after tacking we crossed in front of Windfall so although she had tacked north earlier she hadn't gone very far before tacking back to starboard. Since we had gone so far to the south that meant we would try and go to the starboard-tack layline. As we headed north we got a slight header to ~275°. We were well ahead of the on the north and the header helped us on the boats behind us to the south.
With D Mark bearing 188-189° we tacked, about 1/3 mile away from the mark. To be safe, we had overstood slightly. That was a good thing as Trust Me from PHRF C had well overstood and sailed over the top of us just as we got to the mark. When we tacked Teaser seemed to be headed 10-15° higher. She must have been in a slightly different wind. In any event, that allowed her to cut our lead almost in half by the time we rounded D Mark.
After setting the spinniker we continued a short while on starboard before gybing over to port. Teaser followed in our tracks. With the decent wind we were able to sail fairly deep, not too far off the course to the detached breakwater. Looking back, we could see Mis-Que, Avet, Wildcard and Athena continuing to the south on starboard tack. We aren't sure where Windfall was because we don't know her spinnaker (there was one boat behind us heading to the north and that might have been her). We gybed several times, eventually approaching the end of the detached breakwater on starboard tack. We did a floater tackdown and gybed around the end of the breakwater. Teaser was a short ways behind us.
After rounding the south breakwater we headed toward the middle of the entrance channel to keep clear air. With the tide coming out we wanted to favor the south side but wanted clear air. After tacking the jib across to go wing-and-wing we pretty much stayed in the middle of the channel, mostly trying to keep from sailing under Pequot, a Beneteau 36.7. As we passed the end of the NO SAIL buoys, Pequot decided to head to our inside, thus sailing above us. Since they aren't in our class we decided not to defend against them and instead sailed lower for clear air. As we came to the turning mark, Pequot was on our inside but since we were reaching up we had more speed and wound up clear ahead.
After passing the rounding mark, we went high to discourage Pequot from trying to sail over the top of us. She went to leeward instead. We sailed to finish off the CYC guest dock. Teaser was a ways back and since she owes us time we knew we got a first. We never saw Windfall but she must not have been too far back as she corrected over Teaser.