Wednesday, July 14, 2010

July 14 - Two races in 15 knots

We launched before 10 this morning and headed out to the course. The wind was from the SE which is a direction we haven't seen before. It was about 10-12 knots when we launched and picked up to around 15 before the race started. We tuned up with Dana and Karen and the Race Committee started on time at 11. The first race we had a really good start and an awesome first upwind. Our game plan as per Dave was to "start near the middle and tack as little as possible" which is exactly what we did. There was more wind closer to shore so the entire fleet was hitting the left side. We rounded mid-fleet and headed downwind. While our upwinds have improved greatly; our downwinds leave a bit to be desired. We struggled to get in sync with the waves and the ridiculously strong current and fell back in the fleet. The second race we thought we had a clean start but after looking at the results apparently we were over early! Our upwind wasn't as good as in the first race we got a bit out of phase with the shifts. We continued to work on our downwind speed but something about the boat set up felt wrong. After the race we headed in as a huge storm with winds up to 100 km/hr was predicted. The plan was to wait out the storm and then head back on the water for a 6.30 start; but like the last time we postponed for a storm it took its time arriving. We checked the tuning on the boat and discovered the pre-bend on the mast was out by 10 mm; this along with a few other adjustments explained the weird mast set up. We de-briefed with Dave and sat around waiting for the storm. It finally arrived at 5, which is when we would have had to start rigging again for the 6.30 start. They cancelled racing for the day and changed the start time for tomorrow to 10 AM. This means we need to launch at 8.45; which means we will have to get up around 6; so we are going to bed early tonight!



You can read the official 470 Worlds reports here.

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