Dear Santanians.
The weekend before last was some of the best white sails racing I have been
in over the last two years. We had 5 boats out and in both races all 5
finished within 2 minutes of each other. There was never a feeling of
sailing alone at the back or top of the fleet. The day was summed up by
Michael Kennedy when in the midst of a downwind duel for first, he turned to
me with a huge smile on his face and yelled "Isn't this awesome!" Michael,
congratulations on jumping out in the thick of things on your first race!
In the 1st race we came in last, and I hope Tackful can chime in with some
of what they did right to come out in first. Things not to do are be late
at the gun and sail into less pressure on the beat to the finish. There was
a reason we were the only boat going off to the left after the leeward
rounding...
In the 2nd race we tacked in underneath Tackful at the boat end and managed
to get them on barging. We had a fair start and worked on covering the rest
of the boats and not getting out of touch with the fleet. We nicked the
windward mark trying to shoot it and by the time we had done a 360 Pariah
had caught up with us. The whole fleet compressed with the boats behind
attacking those ahead with their wind shadow. I feel we were able to break
away by the leeward mark by sailing a slightly hotter angle. Pariah split
from the fleet and sailed off to the left. We didn't want to go over there
after our experience in the first race, but also wanted to cover so we split
the difference after working over to the right a bit. At the finish we were
impressed to see that Tackful had worked back up into 3rd(?) even after
having to spin at the start.
The results are online in the ODCA section of the YRA site:
http://www.yra.org/ODCA/odca_race_results.html
Michael Kennedy (Pariah) is not included for some reason. We're trying to
get that sorted out.
The next race will be at Knox on June 9th. Current and wind made this a
very exciting race last year, with the lead changing hands many times over
the first race. Get out on the course early and try to figure out the
conditions. Don't forget to consult your tide book!
Can we have a show of hands for who plans to attend?
Best,
Pete
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