Wind:225 degrees, 8 to 12 kts Current: ebb Ram Island 1809 Crew: Brian, Bob, Seth & RW With a threat of weather all day and storms to the west along the shore and inland, it only rained a bit on the way out to the start. The windward mark was set at 275 degrees at 1nm for two laps. We were setup for a great start about a quarter of the way down the line with about 30 seconds to go when the wind backed 50 degrees and held in that general direction for the remainder of the race. What was to be a windward/leeward event turned into four reaches, two each genoa & spinnaker. It was great fun but hard for us to compete.
I had planned on running down the line to be near the pin at the gun and continue out on starboard to for a while to the deeper water to catch the last of the flood. With the shift we could not clear the pin, so we tacked to mid-line, ducked Jolly Mon and held port all the way to the layline. A better position would have been farther to windward for clearer air and deeper water for more current. We rounded and began the set to find the guy stuck under the port lifeline, which took us the better part of a minute to sort out. We then had a nice reach to the leeward mark maybe dousing a bit early, yet rounded inside Tumult nicely and exited tight to windward. The subsequent beat took us directly to the mark for a much better set and a very fresh breeze increasing to 12 and above at the finish, occassionally exceeding six knots boatspeed ourselves.
We finished 5th out of 8, Doone withdrawing.
Link to Chart