SYSCO Spring Series, Thursdays, Fleet 6 (B)

The winds were 10 knots from the Southwest. We started on the fifth race. The course was 14-T-14-T-14. This allowed the race committee to shorten the race to 14-T-14. Our fleet is 8 boats:

1. Trigger, skippered by Jerry Armstron, Ericson 23 Mk I
2. KA-SL, Gary Whitney, Catalina 28
3. Capella, Phil Johnson, Catalina 25
4. Solla Sollew, Mary Hartel, Ericson Mk I
5. Aventura, Ken Stephens, San Juan 28
6. La Dolce Vita, Scott Stevenson, Hunter 30
7. Estrella Del Mar, Michael Nance, Cal 2-29
8. Aljibe, Jim Foster, US Yatch 27

We had an average start. We ran the mark before the race to figure out the timing, but when we set up for the race, I ended up missing a tack, coming about and had to do a 360 which made is a little later than we planned. But at least we did not go over early. We had planned to take the port tack down river by the mark, 14. We ended up too much out in the channel and had to turn to starboard tack to cross the start. We then tacked to port back down river and got out into the channel. We stayed on that tack until the mark was just forward of the beam and then tacked to starboard. This gave us the right of way to the mark. We made sure we did not tack early and have to do a couple of quick tacks. Some time running down stream we noticed the jib had wrinkles and went to trim the halyard. This is where we (I) screwed up. Instead of locking the main halyard and taking it off the winch on top of the cabin, we ran the jib halyard to the starboard jib winch. We tightened the halyard only to discover it overran itself and tied a knot. We were coming up to the windward mark at this time and chose to wait until we rounded the mark to free the halyard and winch since we did not really need the winch due to the point of sail we were going to take. We rounded the windward mark first. Then I gave the helm to Bill O. and started working with Chuck to free the jib halyard. We ran the line to the port cabin top winch and started with brut force to free the line. It worked, but Chuck pointed out that the port cabin winch was now loose on the cabin top. I noticed later that there were now spider cracks in the cabin. This looks like it might be a major repair. It flashed on me today that we could have locked the main halyard and taken it off the starboard cabin top winch and used that to trim the jib halyard. That's what is is laid out to do. duh. We decided not to set the whisker pole and just run with a broad reach. Meanwhile Estrella had set her pole and took off. You can see the general slowness in the first part of the downwind leg. Results are not up, yet. Will post when they are up.