Race: Midwinters

This was a fun regatta, 7 boats entered and we cemented our more recent experiences of being in the fleet rather than following it around.

With a last minute withdrawal who magically appeared on another boat but not on their crew manifest we ran a little light for the conditions, in the past I'd have pushed hard to get numbers up but with the people on the boat had a lot of confidence that we'd pull it off.

Going into it we decided to have Sarah work both the mast and trim or tail. During maneuvers John took on Sarah's trimming duties and otherwise kept his head out of the boat. If things didn't work out it was nice knowing we had the experience to adjust and try different approaches but it worked pretty well and we sailed this way for both days.

Day one was light air from the SW.

Race 1 we picked up significant kelp can despite multiple attempts couldn't budge it, something we have to work on more. Despite dragging this from the first upwind beat we managed to hold onto 4th place.

Race 2 was going better we rounded the second leeward mark in third and right on the leaders when our genoa halyward blew. Crewwork getting the sail back on board and attached to spin1 was pretty quick but we lost a several places as the rest of the fleet had been compressed behind us. Luckily we were pushed far right while recovering and I think this worked to our benefit, putting us in 5th place in the end.

Race 3 (two beats and one run) we led until the last gybe when we had Adventure breathing down our neck and a split decision on board on what to do - sail a hot angle and fast or slow and inside. In the end we did neither, they were inside at the mark and we finished in second.

Day two heavier air (10-13kts, predicted at 15+).

Jon Gardner at North Sails pulled out some stops and we had a new spinnaker to play with, just missing day 1 because of the terrible weather the rest of the US has been suffering. With the new sail boat speed downwind was awesome and it seemed that only Sorcerer was on the same pace but it also felt like they weren't holding it as deep as we could. We decided to experiment with the #3 jib while the fleet went with their Genoas and in the end I think the power lost in the lulls was enough to push us back a bit because of the bumpy water, but this is a learning curve and running a few hundred pounds under the crew weight limit we played it conservatively. Next time in similar conditions we'll go the other way and see what the difference is.

Race 4 A little under-powered, ended 3rd, nothing much in my memory banks.

Race 5 A little under-powered and lost some boat lengths when a boat forced us to luff hard to avoid likely contact and then left us sitting slow and right on her - we had to tack away and subsequently sailed the wrong way with the same boat passing just in front of us at the windward mark (then turning down in front of us and later claiming that my call for room was invalid - apparently missing the point of 18.3, though in this case my belief is both boats sailed the rules perfectly). We were on starboard but my protest was thrown out due to incorrect flag use - a baseball cap doesn't quantify as a stand in and apparently there's a 17 second time limit. We'll be better prepared next time. In a close finish we ended up 5th by a single boat length and only a few more to 3rd.

Conclusions:

3rd place in the last race would have given 3rd in the regatta, we ended up in 4th place overall from Adeline by two points and were only 8 points off the two lead boats Adventure and Melokia. I think the final position was fair and there's work to be done yet to really challenge the leaders but we'll get there :)

Running with John's eyes outside the boat was awesome and I concentrated on the telltales more.

Crew work was amazing. The bow was solid. Power was good, we worked hard on acceleration out of tacks and playing a clean and simple race. We didn't have a single major spinnaker problem, might have been a bit slower here and there than we'll be at the end of the year but many of the other boats were having to deal with major wraps and spinnaker resets while we didn't.

We also consolidated some more rules knowledge that will help and we hit a few different boat on boat situations that will get played differently next time.

Lastly this was a great chance to play with the jib, I think it was just slightly the wrong decision in the conditions but this was a good chance to get a feel for it against other 36.7's all running Genoas.

Great practice for the NOODs next month where we'll play a couple of extra tricks hidden up our sleeves, not to mention have more hands on deck!