Mount Gay

Friday night racing started for the summer. Sailed with SS and HM.

This paragraph is heavy on racing jargon so you can skip this paragraph – it is mainly a race log for me to remember next time. Hope the competition does not know about this blog:
Weird conditions (no wind 30 min before start. S at 4 15 mins before start. W at 7 10 mins before start. NNW at 12 nine minutes before start – had good NNW 8-15 during the race with big but SLOW oscillations. Went East well after the finish [pic]). Bullet hunted me successfully and I had to spin at the committee boat with 12 seconds to go, but had a good start anyway and only lost when ChiChi (new boat – #126 well-prepared and very well-sailed but with 4 people and over the 650 lb limit) was able to cross-tack about 8 minutes in and force us right. Lost 30+ boat lengths on the tack and that was the difference at the end of the race. Mark was way N of where crew thought it was (bring GPS next time). Thus we overstood on port tack as the wind wrapped around Champaign Pt. But I don’t think we lost that much then because there was little pressure on the east side and we were fast and on the inside at the mark.  Downwind stayed high – which worked for a while but because of the oscillations later it would have been better to dive in the high pressure despite the later classes. Low was much faster in the middle of the downwind leg. Leftover swell from the wind surfed us so I went DDW for a while and it paid off with about 12 boat lengths because we were on the inside of the pinwheel. Last leg stayed above a B36.7 but got rolled by an Etchell. Had a chance but Surt with 11 on-board killed us. Committee boat was NE of finish mark so we had to tack to finish. Again, on the inside so managed to push Wings (J29) back about 25 seconds because of a slow middle boat on starboard.

Ended up being a wonderful race and evening. Did not use the egoCam because there was absolutely no wind when we left the dock :(. Went up to Anthony’s after the race and met many people and spent too much money (maybe their plan when deciding to sponsor the race?). Mount Gay Rum joined as a sponsor in the last 2 weeks – got lots of red swag. There is a lot more energy in racing this year so expect more happy posts. I even went out to the chandlery today and spent too much money – because that is what sailing is about – wasting money. Best 1st night Friday Night racing ever (since 1999, though 2000 was close with the helicopters filming the race – OneWorld).