Thursday, July 2, 2009, SYSCO Summer Series, Crusing Class, Race 5

Nice warm evening. Crew was KD and Chuck. Winds were about 10 to 15 at start and settled down to below 10 by finish. All out of the same direction north north west. The course was C-2-B-2-C.

Started the race on starboard tack. Again we were in heavy traffic. Cepheron always seems to be on my lee. She kept pushing me to luff. (At a discussion after the race at the closing celebration barbecue I had a discussion with Andre. He told me that I should be able to point very well with my San Juan. I need to tighten up the back stay adjuster. Next time. . . ). So we fell behind her and continued until we tacked to port and crossed the river. We tacked at the Washington side to starboard and then tacked again when the concrete wall was abeam. We made the mark after tacking to starboard about 5 boat lengths from the mark. We avoided a few starboard tack boats with little penalty.

Rounding the mark we went into a port wing on wing. Chuck set the pole to starboard. We headed directly for B mark. Some of the bigger boats head over to the Oregon side and then reach up to the mark. One of these races, I will do that. But for now I can't seem to get it out of my head to head straight to the leeward mark. My thinking is that the fastest course between to points is a straight line. About 3/4 of the distance to the mark the wind started to back wind the head sail, coming around to almost a beam reach. We dropped the pole well in advance of the mark.

Rounding the leeward we went straight to a starboard tack from a port broad reach. I noticed all the other boats going to a port tack after the mark. They were redoing the start of the race when they did not have to. I went to the starboard tack because the leeward mark was set a distance from the leeward shore. This distance was enough for me to continue on starboard tack until the concrete wall was abeam again. We tack to port and started crossing the river. Since we had gained a few boat lengths on the fleet we encounter a few boats on starboard tack and had to maneaver around them. We lost a few seconds, but had gained a few minutes on the fleet because of the previous maneaver.

Rounding the buoy 2, the windward mark, we went back to the port wing on wing and headed straight to the finish mark. We stayed to the mark side of the finish as it gave us a better point of sail.

Some Monday morning quarter backing: On the C-2 leg of a race with north north west winds, I am not going to wait until the Washington side to tack. The middle is much better ground to be in when tacking down river. The current is faster. So next time I am going to tack at the middle of the river. If the wind heads to the north a little, I would stay on the starboard starting tack as long as possible.

Results are in: Aventura came in 6 on the handicapped scoring and 10 on finish scoring for the Cruise-f fleet.

We now I am taking time off to have an operation. A part of my body decided to become cancerous, so I am having it taken out. Probably will not race the next series. Maybe something in August.