Course: X-Intrepid-L-Intrepid Seth called from Hartford tied up in traffic. Even though Brian & I could have handled it alone I decided to wait knowing we would be late & blow our chances at a placing. Arriving at the old Mudheads? start area, we found the pin end closest to our approach, with the J24?s stacked up due to the ebb, and rounded the pin directly behind them six minutes behind our class. In six knots of wind we maintained port tack to the windward layline and with a tack to starboard and the current on our stern we shortly made the mark. A great set found us on the sterns of Tumult & Get Fuzzy, which we shortly overtook as the wind began to die.
Reaching down to Groton Long Point?s eastern most nun, R?22?, we jibed to port and slowly made our way up to the buoy. Nearing the nun, with traffic gathering behind us, sufficient wind to clear was lost and the dreaded rearward drift began. Up went the genoa, and down came the spinnaker. After reaching up towards the point out of the current, we followed with a series of tacks along the rocks back towards the nun.
Forty minutes after our first approach to the nun we finally rounded, to spend the next hour wallowing in the little bay between the two GLP buoys clear of the current, nada wind as most of the fleet lying at anchor back at R?22? began radioing their withdrawals. Inching out towards the leeward mark, the clock ran out at eight-thirty.
Only twenty-one boats out of 52 finished. Had Jolly Mon not slipped past just outside the finish line they would have been #1 in the whole fleet. It took twenty minutes for them to make their way back and finish first in class and 16th overall.
Link to Race Chart
Link to Groton Long Point Chart