Fall 4
What a great last race day. The sun was out, the wind was from the North at 9-13 knots for the start of the race, and finished off at 4-6 knots, and the tide was in coming. We had 6 racers come out for the final race, Rode Trip, Organized Chaos, Salty Song, Night Hawk, Outlier and The Grateful Dad. We chose to race course "G", the short course that goes from (M)TMTS. Two laps out and around T with a self start at M and finish at S (same as M). There was some good dialog on course selection before the race because of the strong wind, but the forecast did show a significant drop in wind around noon. This gave us 1.5-2 hours of a good race window.
With the short course the start times came and went quickly and NightHawk and Rode Trip got off the start line. Next up was us on The Grateful Dad. I had my son Brody, my niece Bella, and my Dad as crew. We started the race and chose to tack to port because of the incoming tide, and being right behind Rode Trips bad air. We sailed as far to the east as we thought was layline, with the incoming tide and our course angle the current helped push us to windward. We tacked out for T, but with the wind being so shifty and the current setting us we still shorted the layline and had to tack two more times. We rounded T and set our spinnaker.
The run down to M was pretty uneventful, we gybed twice and were making good VMG toward the mark because it appeared the wind increased. The real excitement happen on our boat as we approached the leeward mark, the spinnaker take down, and a lee shore. Brody decided he was going to mutiny. Luckily, when getting lunch sandwiches I picked up some airheads candies. These saved the day and I was able to bribe him into complying. He knows not to tell mom! Haha We set him up quickly with an airhead and Blippy on my phone down below and we were off racing again. Youll notice I have no more photos after rounding M.
We rounded M for our second and final lap of the race and to our surprise the wind had picked up. It was in the mid teens, but still very shifty! This was the first time I second guess the short course decision. We followed the same tactic, sailed as far east as we could to round T in one tack. As we were racing up on port tack with the increased wind the bigger boats were starting to catch up. Being a pursuit race the handicap is already in place so your position is your position and we knew the bigger boats would start to catch up. But then they started to tack, and felt it was way too early to get to T. So we kept going, and when we were in the vicinity of our race mark V we tacked out for T. Out only difficulty was shifty the toddle down below while not disturbing his blippy show. Once heading out it was a close call to make it to T, but with the shifty wind and choppy seas we didnt know if we would make it. With some luck we got more wind and some flat seas for our final stretch into the mark and we rounded without having to tack.
We set the spinnaker and just kept sailing on starboard gybe. The strong winds that we had going up wind seemed to have went away and as we kept sailing on starboard toward the west side of the course the wind kept dropping and shifting further and further forward (or more westerly) which allowed us to sail closer and closer to the finish line. We realized as predicted at noon the wind was lightening up. We were able to sail all the way to mt sinai inlet and gybe over to the finish line. Finishing just after 1200.
It was a challenging race on a beautiful October day. A great way to finish off the season, and even better we had another group of MSSA boats on a cruise over to milford. We saw some of these boats heading out while we were racing.
Thank you to everyone who helped make this a great season for the MSSA! See you at the awards luncheon, I am working for the October monthly meeting.