Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Jan. 26 - Race 5

This morning was rainy and gross and there was no wind so the Race Committee postponed us on shore for two hours. The wind report wasn't looking good; the low pressure system was finally moving through but there was supposed to be no wind behind it. We headed on the water at noon for a 1 o'clock start and the breeze filled in from the SW. There was a group of large black clouds moving across the sky from SE to NW, and it was really interesting to observe its progression after just having had a weather talk by Eric Holden, the Canadian Meteorologist. The wind went left before the cloud moved over head and then the wind increased to 15+ knots and started going right. We knew there would (probably) be no wind behind the cloud, so we kept our rig set up for light air. After one general recall we had an awesome start and tacked out right. We were really really fast upwind - we went from being behind and to leeward of a pack of boats to being in front and to windward of them. We were actually winning the right side of the course for a large portion of the upwind. As the cloud passed overhead the breeze died down to about 8-10 knots. We came back into the top mark in second on the right hand side and ended up rounding the top mark in 4th, just behind Sanni and Tina who had gone left. Then we struggled with the reach and watched as most of the top boats sailed over us! More things to work on. The downwind was good; we had good speed and were surfing as much as possible. Unfortunately we had to give 2 boats room at the leeward mark and couldn't quite get behind them. The second upwind and downwind were sailed in lighter breeze and we held our position. We finished this race in 19th which is our best race yet for this regatta. It is such a great feeling to have a good start and a great first beat - we find we sail with more focus and energy when we are up with the leaders and there are so many more learning opportunities sailing in this kind of traffic.

We have a late start tomorrow (1300) so can sleep in a bit. They will probably try and get in 3 races to make up for only having one today but we shall see!

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