MRMSA Wed Night-Summer Series - Race 3

Date: 07/24/2002 Log Entry: Race
Distance: 9.0 Weather: NE 12-16 Current: flood 1743 at Ram
Course: s/f-M-N-M-N-s/f (p) Crew: BB, JL & RW

MRMSA Wed Night-Summer Series -  Race 3

 

Last week Brian, Jeff and I had memorable evening of sailing. With winds of 12-16 knots out of the northeast, the R/C set an unusually long course of nine miles. Two laps with the windward mark up in the Mystic River and the leeward one North Hill R"2" 2.25 nm distant to the SW, with the s/f somewhere in the middle. Off to a good start at the committee boat we soon tacked to port hugging the Clumps for current relief.  Slightly overstanding "M”, we had a good rounding and set. With Brian, handling foredeck and Jeff pulling all the middle strings our sets and jibes came off without a hitch, though Jeff nearly continued off the side of the boat along with the mainsail on one occasion.

One item to remember -when removing the halyard from the spinnaker, after the douse, hook the head to velcro in the bag.

 

Working the current in our favor, we jibed down the middle between the Dumplings, and  hugged the shores of South Dumpling and Flat Hammock on the returns in a newly discovered favorable eddy, hiking to max all the way.  Not able to see the committee boat and the finish line in the approaching twilight, we thought they might have moved the finish up to "M" in the river, so we continued across the mouth of West Harbor prior to tacking to starboard. Nearing West Clump with all of us on the rail, I finally saw the line appear out from behind the genoa. We quickly bore off to cross the line a few seconds behind Gael Force. I figure nearly five minutes were lost not knowing where the finish was, certainly first place. The GPS printout shows us going nearly 5 minutes out of our way. Four minutes & six seconds would have moved us into first.

 

Regardless, in retrospect, I feel we could have gained further current relief had we tacked to starboard along the east shore of the Hammock on both returns, the second of which would have set us up for the proper finish. 

 

Boat     Type    Skipper            PHRF  E Time C Time Class    Fleet    

 

1-Sanibel-Pearson30                Keeler,199       126.22 109.54

 

2-SassyLassie-Newport28       Burnham,162    122.20 111.56

 

3-SeTherin-Catalina22             Magner,273     142.78 112.77

 

4-GaelForce-C&C24               Harren,218       141.82 120.03  

 

5-Tumult-Ericson30                  Litke,215         145.77 123.86