We're still working out the course - it has tidal flows and a big persistent shift across it. There are massive race traffic flow problems to deal with mixed with the occasional aircraft carrier....
For days preceding the race a local weather condition was shutting down the sea breeze but predictions remained consistent at about 10kts on the day of the race.
Morning of the race dawned clear and calm. Calm was interesting, the offshore breeze was already out of the picture. By the time I got to the boat at 10am it was approaching 10kts and from the NW. This could combine with a later sea breeze....
Our race start was 12:26:40. As we motored out to the course the breeze backed off and rotated north. Now it was looking light again. We crossed the line on the second and at the pin but slow. Two other 36.7s had jumped the gun and with them turning back we found ourself the lead boat of our group, with Melokia above us.
With the current behind us and a squeak of boat speed we keep this position and later gybed back into the current and consolidated. As we cleared Point Loma the fresher breeze started to kick in and the race changed personality... the first mark in this race is typically a reach gybing to a run but this time we found ourself deep with 16kts of building breeze gybing to a reach.
It was a fun reach! Gybing right at the mark we found our selves a bit below the mark. As I grew more confident in my lightweight spinnaker sheets ability to take the pressure we worked up to the mark, with boat speed between 8 and 10 kts. Fun times!!! I even whooped on a few waves though we weren't breaking free and surfing it felt good.
Kea, a 36.7 sailing with a larger masthead asym had been firmly behind on the first leg but once on the reach she was making trees on us. As I become more confident in the hardware I was working up, both to try and cut her off and to give my foredeck some down before the mark to get the kite down. In the end we didn't cut her off and rounded the second mark inches behind her transom (reverse positions to the last race of the last regatta).
Both of us were looking pretty good relative to the fleet though, with some space before the big boats got to us and smaller boats ahead.
We were flying a #1 and hadn't put battens in the #3. As we came back up the course the wind speed increased to 20kts and this proved costly. We also made some tactical mistakes (my fault). Having overstood the third mark I aimed at it but this allowed boats that had overstood even further to have the inside at the mark. This left us pinned and slow and in bumpy water and crappy air (and seriously overpowered... wind still increasing). It was a while before we could tack for cleaner air and meanwhile Kea had been inside at the mark, tacked and was stretching their lead.
Positives though in that there was no sign of the other 36.7s being near. This is a race where every boat you lose (that rolls you from behind) pushes you back towards the even faster boats behind them. Getting the early part right is critical and we'd got lucky there. Back at the bar it turned out there were a couple of blown spinnakers, and the two OCSs so that cleared out much of the fleet.
Back to us!
As we came into the pressure waves under Point Loma the gusts kept building. It was ugly, we were flogging our main and genoa a lot and wishing we had the #3 up. Perhaps we should have switched...
I saw 24kts TWS but wasn't really paying attention at the high points, simply trying to feather into them but maintain just enough pressure on the sails to keep our speed up.
Luckily lots of other boats were in the same situation. Later conversations had boats claiming they saw 30kts but I wonder if they were talking AWS not TWS. Many of us were completely over canvased.
As we passed the sub pens we had an encounter with a 47.7. They were moving fast on starboard and a duck would have meant a massive loss, if we could have even managed a bear away. To the left we had shallow water. I luffed hard until the last minute then flopped onto port and back again as soon as we could. It was painful and we lost a lot of ground - and then ended up in their dirt.
Shortly afterwards an F10 ran aground in the same place.
After this section the wind normally lightens and again it did. We'd been starting to look quite good against Kea until the El Sueno (the 47.7) incident but had lost them. Working the left side of the course though we start picking off boats that had gone right. Kea came back in sight, no chance of beating them but the 2 minutes they crossed the line ahead of us was about felt about right.
We picked of a 40.7, a F10 and some other misc boats in that last stretch but had lost a huge amount on the first half of the upwind. Eventual result was 53rd.
Pictures from da woody None of the exciting bits though (barring that Cat starting to flip - full sequence in the link - is that Jay Davis of OYC going for a swim?)
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