Wind: SW at 0 to 6, average 3.4 kts
Temp: 70 F, Baro: 29.86”
Current: last of flood, ebb North Hill 18:55
Course: sf-DM-s/f, Race Length: 2.1 nm
Crew: Brian, Adam, Dan & RW
Following a fifty minute delay, the RC finally got a start off. We had what looked to be good start half way down the line leading Cosmic, Jolly Mon & Sans Souci, when either Zallee or Merganser forced Gimlet head to wind and on to port turning Cosmic & ourselves into sandwich meat between Jolly Mon & Gimlet. After squeezing out above Gimlet, we hung onto heavily favored starboard with Sans Souci ahead & to windward, while Cosmic, Zallee & Jolly Mon tacked early on. Finally tacking to port we found ourselves on a long gradually lifted tack to the mark. Zallee was first to round, and we ducked Jolly Mon to round slightly ahead of Merganser & Cosmic.
Following the rounding, we should have jibed for northing then rather than later downwind with little to no wind. Many boats maintained a fresh starboard jibe then did not have the wind to work northward against the current at the finish and subsequently withdrew.
At around 1945 hours & five minutes of effort we abandoned our port jibe attempt (not able to fly the chute), yet with the current wind on starboard jib, we could. It retrospect we should have persevered on port. At some point early in the last half to the run Sans Souci worked their way northward which we did not observe allowing them to approach on a fresh reach to cross finish well ahead as we were making our port positioning jibe for the finish at 1952 hours to cross at 1958 trailing by nearly 4 minutes. We were fortunate to finish as many did not.