ACS race from The Grateful Dad. Sorry no pics.
MSSA Vice Commodore
What a race the ACS turned out to be this year! For a few days leading up to it, it sure seemed unlikely we would even get a race in. A week out the Saturday forecast was not great and Sunday even worse. But as the days went on, the forecast shifted just a little bit and as race day came we were in for a great day.
On race day we had 15-20 knots from the NE, well a little more north than NE which helped create these big 4-5' rolling waves coming down the race course with a 6-7 second wave period. The tide was at max flood during the race which helped flatten these out a bit. But to be honest, this was what I always remembered fall racing to be, great wind, big waves, sun and warm water. My crew agree it was the best race day of the 2024 season and we had a ton of fun on my boat.
I had 4 crew members for this race, and I was trying to find more but we managed with it. We went out to the race course and got to the start area at 11, thinking we had 20 minutes until our prep flag for our start but we noticed a few boats starting earlier than their start time in the SI's (turns out those weren't official). As we were going back and forth I had just started my 15 minute timer at 1110, and noticed the class four flag up. This was our start sequence. We were not positioned for a start, we quickly raised our jib (which I reefed) and had just enough time to tension the halyard and tack when the gun went off. We were about 5 boat lengths off the start line, but luckily we got going quickly.
Warlock and Red Sky started near the RC boat, Salty Song and Exuberance started closer to the pin end and The Grateful Dad toward the middle of the line. We all tacked over to port fairly quickly. We were going up wind in 15-20 true on my instruments with these big rolling waves straight on the bow. We had a view of red sky to leeward pointing the same, and Warlock further to leeward but out pointing us by 5 degrees easily. Damien had that boat flying upwind going to weather and quickly went from below everyone in the fleet to almost the most windward boat all while on the same tack, that was amazing to watch! Due to the incoming tide almost all the boat went to the layline on the right side. With one tack back out we realized we over stood, and bore away a bit to get down to the mark. But we did not take the incoming tide into account and came down too much and needed to two tack back to T. That was a bit embarrassing, but it happened.
We rounded T behind Salty Song and Red Sky, Warlock and Exuberance had already rounded and had their kites flying. As we came around we bore away real deep and set out spinnaker. With a reef in my jib we were able to keep the jib flying with the kite. This helped, it acts as a stay sail but is also one less thing to have to deal with at the bottom of the leg. With the kite up we were flying, 8, 9, 10, 11, knots. Once we got going we just stayed in the 9-11 knot range with a few longer and faster surfs into the 12 knot range. It was a blast, timing the waves and getting the boat to surf is always a great feeling especially when you can connect a few waves together and keep it going.
We chickened out and dropped the kite to gybe and head to C. At this point we managed to maintain our position with Red Sky, and we both gained distance on Salty Song. Warlock and Exuberance were about half the leg ahead of us at this point. We rounded C to head back up to T with the same game plan. Port tack over to the right side. Going left, didn't make sense with such a strong tide running. We paced Red Sky the whole leg, 2 boat lengths separated us. We were just to weather of them but neck and neck this whole leg, every time I hit a wave bad or they hit a wave bad you could see the direct results from the loss of speed, It was fun! As we approached the right hand side lay line Red Sky tacked and we held out for another 5-6 boat lengths before we tacked. This proved to be a big deal because we managed to just make the mark. Red Sky had to two tack up to T. We had a close rounding with them, 4-5 feet between us as we both bore away.
Simultaneously we hoisted our spinnakers, and just like the first down wind leg the speeds rose. 9, 10, 11 knots the entire leg, (fast for a J-29). Organized Chaos rounded ahead of both of us and we managed to get into the quarter wake of them which really helped us surf the big waves. Red Sky managed to pull away from us and must have been flying into the teens in boat speed. We set a personal best of 12.5, and spent a good amount of time in the high 11's. We flew down the last leg and finish just behind Red Sky, and way behind Warlock and Exuberance. Luckily we had time on our side, and great surfing conditions! I asked Damien after the race and he said he was in the range of 13-15 knots of boat speed going downwind.
Over all it was a great race run by a great RC (Thank you PJYC), a great course and the awards party afterwards was awesome. The most enjoyable ACS after party i have been to in years. The turn out was amazing and the race organizing committee did an amazing job! The new venue was packed, and it even had room for the kids to cause their chaos.
Audra Mammina
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