Summer 3
MSSA Vice Commodore
Summer 3
What a challenging evening. A light 3-7 knot westerly in a strong Ebb tide, this created alot of opportunities on the race course. It also caused alot of short lay line calls. I was the victim of this too many times last night. With a 30 minute delay due to anchoring issues the RC was able to get a rolling start off. The course was (Y)CYCY. Most boats choose to go on port to the right hand lay line. The wind was light and we were stuck behind a larger boat so we tacked and went left. We felt like we were sailing into more wind and less current. Although this was true we also sailed into a big header after we tacked and were approaching C. We crossed 10 boat lengths or so behind crocodile. Organized Chaos and Outlier were already launched ahead. They chose to bang the right and one tack to the mark when we tacked a few times and shorted the lay line. After rounding and setting the spinnaker it was a one gybe leg down to Y that was very quick. As we rounded Y the sun was setting and it was getting dark, which I think counts as a night race now. It was one more leg up to C, I chose to go to the right corner on this leg to keep it simple and it worked for the previous boats. Most of the fleet decided to go to the left on this leg. It seemed like the left side paid off a little better this time and the boats that went over to that side gained. Outlier was still light years ahead and went on to be the first spinnaker boat to finish. With the strong current still flowing, I did not learn from my mistakes on the previous legs and still shorted my lay line and had to two tack to C. We rounded the last mark just behind crocodile and just ahead of salty song. It was another one gybe to the finish which by the looks of it most boats over stood including us and had a super tight reach to the finish. Thank you to Darius and Nighthawk (Pegasus stood in) for being RC and sticking it out to run the full race course in some light and tricky conditions. And a late finish!
