It's all over but the crying
So, Friday was the last night of the fleet series. To be honest, it was a bit of a let down. After everyone got all excited about the prospect of a knock-down, drag-out night of racing, lead changes and all that, two boats made it to the start line, Ross Weene and us. There are various excuses out there as to why people weren't there, some legit and some non-existent. In the end, there we were.
The good news of the night was it was a blast. Tiring, sketchy, but a blast. The wind was up and down, blasts you could see and some you couldn't, huge wind shifts, the whole nine. It made for some interesting racing seeing as we were pretty much match-racing.
The first start was fun. We had Ross locked out to the right of the committee boat. On one dial-up we came in with too much speed, though, and let him off the hook. The gun went off and we were pretty equal of the line, us to leeward of them. With such a short course it was pretty key to be able to tack so we worked it up, sometimes luffing, sometimes getting headed, sometimes getting knocked over. In the end we were able to force them away and tack onto port. Maybe we had a better angle on port with the little amount of separation we had but that gave us the edge to round in first and set our kite. We went for the bear away and they gybe-set, which was the wrong move. By the leeward mark we had a healthy lead and finished ahead.
The next two races were similar except Ross was late for the second start and it was pretty much wire to wire for us. The third start we started to the right of them. It was a bit of a drag-race out to the left but we managed to keep our separation and take them past the layline. We reached into the top mark and were able to bear away to break any overlap outside the two-length circle. It seems that our downwind speed is fine these days as we built on our lead during the run and rounded and finished in front.
The fourth race was interesting as the RC decided to wrap up the night during the sequence. What we got out of the news was finish at the hoist. Apparently we heard wrong as we were supposed to go up, down, THEN finish at the hoist. By the time we were rounding Fort Adams Ross had figured it out and peel back to finish the course. Having secured the night, Josh and I decided that enough was enough and headed in for a breather. With the wind state and the short courses it had been a crazy sprint and we were already half-way there.
So, despite the lack of boats it was a really fun night and summer series. Thank you so much to the volunteers from the Ida Lewis Yacht Club for making it all happen, again. Someone will be posting final results in short order.
The good news of the night was it was a blast. Tiring, sketchy, but a blast. The wind was up and down, blasts you could see and some you couldn't, huge wind shifts, the whole nine. It made for some interesting racing seeing as we were pretty much match-racing.
The first start was fun. We had Ross locked out to the right of the committee boat. On one dial-up we came in with too much speed, though, and let him off the hook. The gun went off and we were pretty equal of the line, us to leeward of them. With such a short course it was pretty key to be able to tack so we worked it up, sometimes luffing, sometimes getting headed, sometimes getting knocked over. In the end we were able to force them away and tack onto port. Maybe we had a better angle on port with the little amount of separation we had but that gave us the edge to round in first and set our kite. We went for the bear away and they gybe-set, which was the wrong move. By the leeward mark we had a healthy lead and finished ahead.
The next two races were similar except Ross was late for the second start and it was pretty much wire to wire for us. The third start we started to the right of them. It was a bit of a drag-race out to the left but we managed to keep our separation and take them past the layline. We reached into the top mark and were able to bear away to break any overlap outside the two-length circle. It seems that our downwind speed is fine these days as we built on our lead during the run and rounded and finished in front.
The fourth race was interesting as the RC decided to wrap up the night during the sequence. What we got out of the news was finish at the hoist. Apparently we heard wrong as we were supposed to go up, down, THEN finish at the hoist. By the time we were rounding Fort Adams Ross had figured it out and peel back to finish the course. Having secured the night, Josh and I decided that enough was enough and headed in for a breather. With the wind state and the short courses it had been a crazy sprint and we were already half-way there.
So, despite the lack of boats it was a really fun night and summer series. Thank you so much to the volunteers from the Ida Lewis Yacht Club for making it all happen, again. Someone will be posting final results in short order.
posted by Anonymous at 9:08 AM
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