So Sunday dawned and we lost 2 regular crew members for the day so we knew we needed to get away early and do a quick review before the start of two short w/l races for the day.
The RC started the races right on time and had a fairly square course set. However the breeze was coming directly from the East, and your trusted skipper new that it was going to go south at some point, but when was the question.........
We started well, mid line on time with 2 boats to leeward of us. The breeze was light though. After about 10 minutes of racing that new breeze could be seen coming in fast to the right of us.......and all those that started behind us, including the latter divisions starting got it first....axe murder job in full effect!
Needless to say the race became a fetch back and forth with no passing lanes and those that got the 1st mark first won, and we weren't won of them.......finished 6th:(
Race 2 saw the RC move the marks around we got underway in nice 6-8 knot breeze. We had a choice to make again in this race, go left or go right after the start. Well we couldn't quite get our bow out in front of the leeward J 36 so we tacked away and went right......well that turned out to be wrong as those that continued left won big time, getting to the first mark ahead of us by 1-2 minutes.
After rounding mid pack we ran our polars downwind and made up some good time on the leaders. We did an early windward takedown to be safe and tacked rigth at the mark. We left Karina and SilverWing behind and now we were hunting down Joy.
We managed to keep up with Joy upwind to the mark and then had one last chance to get them on the last downwind run. We jibeset at the mark and were linging up our angles to the finish. We were making up ground on Joy but was it going to be enough to correct out.......Well as it turns out it was and got a well earned 3rd place finish.
Because of our terrible morning race we lost out on the podium but came away happy with our boat speed for the weekend.
Thanks to Tony - Val - Nick - Andy - Dave - Darcy for a great weekend.
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