Javier asked Jan or I to forward this on. The 3rd to last paragraph is my
favorite.
Pete
We finally crawled our way out of bottom place on day 2 of the Santana 22
Nationals. For those of you who'll never experience it, I'll let you know
that trying not to get last place is almost as exciting as fighting to get
first.
The first day of the Nationals felt like being in basic training for the
three of us middle-aged weekend warriors sailing #727 Poniente; it was
aggressive and physically demanding. Add to that the fact that, although
I've sailed with all the individuals in my crew, the three of us had never
sailed together on the main bay. Furthermore, we had made a bunch of
modifications to the boat that week and were still drilling and installing
blocks while we were sailing up from Alameda to Richmond on the morning of
the first race. What it added up to on the first race day was a number of
assorted boat handling mishaps the best of which included blowing out the
traveler during the start of Race 2 and getting protested (later retracted)
in Race 3. At any rate, by the end of Day 1 I was beginning to wonder why I
had signed up for the Nationals this being my first season owning and
driving a boat. Thank God for the pitchers of beer at the club after the
race.
Day two brought bigger wind and a slight improvement for us in the fourth
race of the series. But the fifth and last race proved, to me at least, that
we had learned a few things over the course of the weekend. The first was
fight like hell for a good start. In the previous races we had been content
to hang around the middle of the start line and then try to race up to the
line. Unfortunately our timing was always a bit off and 23 other boats would
cut across our bow and gas us mercilessly. For this last race we timed it
better and came in on the RC side low enough not to get barged out. We were
intensely focused on finding a hole in what seemed to me a pretty short line
for 24 boats. With a minute to go bowman and co-owner Sean McKillop called
the line perfectly and helped control the windward Tunas. Paul Mueller, who
didn't sail with us on Saturday, was playing the jib expertly slowing us
down when needed while I zigged and zagged trying to keep the hole open. When
the gun went off we were perfectly positioned. What a change to be up front
and driving hard!
During the prep flag for race 5 we decided that we would try to stick close
to the first day's series winner Michael Andrews' #811 "Bonito". This proved
to be a good idea initially but eventually led to our undoing later in the
race. When the gun went off he was right under us and pushing up hard. We
had good speed but couldn't point as high and after a few minutes he
eventually caught the back of a wave and got spit out in front. Nice move.
Here was a shining example of the difference in skill between first and last
place finishers. Kudos Mike.
Nonetheless, we decided to try and stick with him tack for tack even when
one tack took us way left. It was the right call since we got lifted half
way into it. Still Bonito and the rest of the fast guys kept pulling ahead
higher and faster. By the time we got close to the windward mark we were
somewhere in 11th to 13th place but since that was the best we'd done all
weekend we were really cranked. We saw the second half of the fleet coming
up on starboard and decided to tack over ahead of the pack to defend our
position. Bad move. We misjudged the current and were below the layline
about five boat lengths from the mark and pinching badly trying to make it.
We tacked again. With six boats bearing down on us we tried to crash tack
back on to starboard and keep the inside overlap. No such luck. We didn't
have enough speed to overcome the chop and got stopped dead in irons. For a
couple of seconds we may have rocked backwards. Mizzen slid past us and as
did another Tuna. Then "The Greatest Thing in the World" came up screaming
"starboard" as did a couple others that worked their way around us.
Meanwhile Sean is yelling "Effing tack already," and I'm yelling back to him
and the other Tunas, "We have no weigh (whey, way?)" Makes me the stand-on
boat right? We finally got going and rounded the mark and offset pretty
decently despite the jangled nerves.
Downwind is our worst point of sail so we were willing to try anything new.
One thing we saw and tried out was keeping the weight forward with a guy
sitting on the bow. This was new to me. I've crewed on larger boats that
fly spinnakers and normally we'd try to keep the weight aft. I don't know
what the principal at work here is but it seemed to function as we didn't
lose as many boats lengths as in the previous races. At the leeward mark we
were inside and overlapped of fleet captain Pete Trachy's Maguro who was
very gentlemanly about giving us room. As we were completing our gybe around
the mark Pete came powering up on the inside clearing my transom by about an
inch. Dang! We lost another spot. And compared to us he was booking! The
image reminded me of my motorcycle racing days; coming out of the apex
leaning hard and dragging my knee while twisting open the throttle. Sweet.
And another brutal reminder of how much more I have to learn.
The second rounding of the marks was a bit more tame in that the tail end of
the fleet had spread out and all we had to do was cover to protect our
position. When all was said and done we placed 17th out of 21 Tunas that
sailed that day. But it was the hardest fought and most fun sailing I've
done on the Bay yet.
Thanks and congratulations to the Richmond Yacht Club for putting on a great
event.
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