Eight Points in Two Races - OUCH

What a bad sailing day. Well actually it was a pretty good sailing day for the first 6 hours.

E-Scows sailed without KU-1. So I nursed my annual gin hangover longer than usual, did some chores, and set up to sail about 12:30. The wind was West 5-15 with 20-30 degree shifts, a great day for asymmetrical chutes. I took a few good pics that I will post later.

By 1:00 I was out on the racecourse doing laps between the E-Scow's windward mark and start pin. It was really good practice time. About 1:45 the first sails went up at the club. By the start of the sequence at 2:15 we had 7 boats on the line. By 2:20 the wind died.

My start strategy was mid-line with speed in the light diminishing stuff. I was early and crowded with 30 seconds to go so I violated my own rule and did a quick spin. When I started I was second row (in a fleet of 7 that is hard to do). I slow motion tacked to port to clear, only to find myself now totally dead in the water while those five boats that went left found a nice little streak.

My only hope was to split right, and hope and pray for the right shift. I got the right shift just after the leaders rounded the mark. I was measuring the distance to the lead in football fields.

Andrew Campbell once said on his blog that 1/3 of the race is the start, 1/3 is the first windward leg, and the entire remainder is the balance. We sail 1-lap short courses. It's more like 45% start, 45% windward leg, and 10% for the balance. So I had 10% of the race left to gain any places.

I split downwind (equivalent to throwing a hail mary) and proceeded to lose more distance. In the couple hundred yards back upwind, I closed the gap to the next boat but could not make the pass. I finished 6th out of 7.

Race 2 was better. Actual breeze kept us going the entire race. I won the pin on a hard left shift start and led awhile. On the first header I tacked while Sean held to a layline. He rounded ahead and never looked back. Steve split left downwind and picked me off for second. On the final upwind though I sailed through underneath on some really good boat handling downshifting from a 12 puff to 3. I cleared him and consolidated second.

In race three, the wind dropped to 0-3. Sniffing out the light breezes I rounded first, lost Bob who rolled me, then picked up the lead again before we all decided it wasn't fun anymore and abandoned the day.

Three and a half hours of sailing for a 6, 2 finish. I lost 5 points to both Bob and Sean for the day. If I had a lead (and I really don't know) I bet it is gone.

Worse, I dinged the bow on the dock. Plus the sail is really starting to show its wear. Time for some maintenance work.