Monday, August 9, 2010

Aug 9 - Day 1 Sail for Gold

We had a bit of a slow start to the regatta today. We got up at 6 and were down to the sailing site for 8. We launched just after 9 am and sailed downwind to the course. The breeze was pretty light but picked up as we got down towards our course. We tuned up the boat but didn't manage to find Teddy and Jono to check our speed with them. The race committee started on schedule at 11 with the men's fleet. After several general recalls for all the fleets we finally started at around noon. Our first start was a general recall and then the black flag went up. We thought we had set up far enough back on the second start but at 20 seconds we realized we were too far up and tried to slow down and slide back in line with the other boats. We didn't quite make it, so at go not only were we pretty sure we were black flagged, but we were going backwards. We tacked out for clear air and got lucky as a right shift came down. The breeze had died off since before the start and we were underpowered. We had good downwind speed but upwind we just couldn't get going fast enough to make up for our start. We changed the boat settings and then ate our sandwiches while trapezing/hiking and headed to the line for the second race. We checked the board on the Race Comittee and confirmed that we were black flagged in the first race!

The second race was similar to the first. We set up far enough back on the line but did not have a great start. We went too far right on the first upwind and got caught out on the layline when a left shift came down. We made up some ground downwind but the second upwind was painful. The breeze was up and down - gusts every 5-7 seconds with about 3 knots more velocity and a 10 degree shift. It was incredibly tricky and frustrating to keep the boat consistently flat and going fast with the wind changing every 5 seconds! At least we weren't black flagged!

CYA coach Brian Todd had watched the second race and had some good pointers for us for tomorrow. Hopefully we will remember how to get off the starting line!

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