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2006 Sunset – Race #16 |
August 23rd - Crew tonight was Dick, Art, Bill Herrschaft, Demitri, Frank and Jim (Reggie called in sick at the last minute but since we had Bill H. that wasn't a problem). Wind was moderate before the start - maybe 8-10 knots with 2 foot seas. We had the wind at 235-240° and the starting line square to ~240-245°. That made the left-hand end favored slightly and our original plan was to start near the pin. In the starts ahead of us there were very few boats starting right down near the pin. That caused us some doubts about our plan. Then, our windward mark was displayed as S Mark. If we started at the pin we might get pinned out on the left side of the course so in order to maximize our options decided to start up at the RC boat end. We 20 seconds to go we were the right-most boat and the boat just to our left (Athena was early and heading down the line - thus giving us plenty of room to start right near the RC boat with good speed.
Right before our start the wind got lighter. Our course on starboard tack right after the start was ~199°, the farthest right we had seen all night. Some of that was because the wind had gotten ligher but we also think the wind went left just before our start. Suddenly, starting at the RC boat didn't seem like such a good idea. We sailed for a while on starboard and then tacked to port, hoping to get better air. Almost all the boats were to our left. At first it looked like we might be OK but then the wind went even more left and we looked worse and worse. Then, it seemed as if we were in our own special whole as the other boats all seemed to be faster and higher than us. We went a bit further and our boat seemed to be going slower and slower.
Being really frustrated, we tacked onto starboard even though we were pretty sure we hadn't gotten to the layline. We seemed to have slightly better speed on that tack but were short of the layline and would need to tack twice. We rounded S Mark 6th in our fleet with 4 J/80s and Mis-Que ahead of us. We weren't close enough to the other boats to be sure of the order but think it was 3 J/80s, Mis-Que and then the other J/80. After doing a bearaway set we were basically heading for the end of the detached breakwater so just concentrated on boat speed.
As we approached the detached breakwater the boats ahead of us seemed to be acting strangely. The first J/80 gybed two or three times without changing direction. Athena took off on a very tight reach to the north and then and came back to the south on an even tighter reach. It didn't seem to gain her any places but at least she was going quickly and didn't lose any places. We concentrated on our boatspeed and heading right for the detached breakwater without ever really losing speed. Mis-Que had gone south and we were able to sail inside of her around the breakwater. That left 4 J/80s ahead of us and hopefully we would be able to pull enough on Mis-Que to save our time.
There was no significant traffic and so we just concentrating on trying to sail fast. We were able to close up on the J/80 just ahead of us and although we crossed the finishing line 5th we wound up 4th, having pulled far enough ahead of Mis-Que to beat her. The finish was at Burton Chase Park.