The first race of the series was short. Start, Mark 1, Mark 3, Finish. It took us 20 minutes and 16 seconds. However, we were about 3 boat lengths in front of the second place boat at the finish. The wind was averaging 8 knots out of the northwest. The starting line was at Charlie. Mark 1 was about where the Tomahawk mark would be, but out further in the river at midstream. Mark 3 was roughly at Baker mark.
Our start was about 30 seconds after the horn. We were about 4th or 5th place in the fleet. We started on starboard tack in the middle of the start line. We did not want anything to do with barging boats or being luffed up over the start line. We managed to round the mark in about 4th place. The fleet decided to run the rhumb line. We decided to go around the finish line. We headed over to the Oregon side of the river and was able to maintain a port broad reach, keeping the head sail powering. When we went around the finish mark we trimmed to almost a beam reach. The fleet was converging on the leeward mark. We were slightly ahead of Suku, the second place boat. Due to our angle to the wind on beam reach Suku made sure we gave him mark room by hailing us. I said sure, but mumbled that we were not going to need to. We being on beam reach and Suku on broad reach, we pulled nicely ahead and rounded the mark only to come up against the majority of the fleet approaching the mark. We luffed slightly to get around Estrella Del Mar who was directly in front of us. Then we fell off to starboard close hauled tack and zoomed to the finish.
The crew performed flawlessly. I am proud of them. Grinders were Bill Street and David Wright. The mainsheet controller and, if needed the foredeck crew, Bill Ormond.
I tried to get a track of the race. I seem to always try. I failed. I did get a track up to the start of the race.
The track ends one second before the start of our race. The last red line of the track is the dying glitch of the GPS.
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