MRMSA Wed Night-Summer Series-Race 7

Date: 08/28/2002 Log Entry: Race
Distance: 7.0 Weather: NE 15-20+ kts Current: ebb 1500 Ram
Course: s/f-R-N-R (f),p Crew: Brian, Bob & RW

Last MRMSA Wed Night-Summer Series-Race 7

 

A little late arriving to the starting area, we were further compromised when the boomkicker came apart which we quickly removed and stowed below. And had RW reeved the first reef line earlier in the day, we may have made the line on time. The course was from the start ¼ mile north of the Flat Hammock nun R"2" to Ram Island nun R"20" to fishers Island North Hill R"2" back windward to finish at Ram Island for a total distance of 7 nm. It was a memerable evening, though not for sunsets and , mid-level cloud cover, the rain held off.

 

Three minutes late for the line, we rounded the committee boat and hardened up on starboard towards the Mystic River in fairly lumpy seas due to the northeasterly against the ebb. With starboard favored in the current lift

avoiding port tack till we laid the mark in the flatter water near shore.

Offshore in the greater current,a port tack was fairly rough.  Ten minutes into the race the knotmeter went dead. Finally nearing the shallows southwest of Ram Island we tacked to port for the mark.

 

Electing not to run the spinnaker, we jibed around the mark as Brian and Bob made a few adjustments from the spinnaker set to wing&wing, and in short order we had the heavy WP poled out to starboard, the reef shook out and the main cranked back up to full hoist on the beeline for North Hill, Fishers Island, NY.

Occassionally surfing with a GPS speed of over six knots, the rudder vibrating and the whole boat humming, we  must have had over eight kts of boatspeed a few times, considering we were bucking a good ebb. If only the knotmeter were working, a missed opportunity with computer data log and the updated polars.

 

A number of competitors ahead of us chose a dogleg, south of Flat Hammock and the Dumplings.  After some discussion, we stuck to our between the Dumplings

strategy, the shallow water plan skirting the north edges of Flat Hammock and South Dumpling.  We skimmed past the the Flat Hammock nun with the end of the boom clearing the top of the nun by a little over a foot.  Here in the shallow water our strategy paid off with our GPS over the ground speed picking up to nearly 7 knots.

 

As we cleared the Dumplings, Bob and Brian put the first reef back in and got things set back up for upwind. Moving over to give the J29-Tomahawk room at the mark, set us up for a fast tight rounding of the mark. Extending on port for a good bit to insure a starboard in the middle of the Dumplings for the best current and clearance of the south shore of North Dumpling, we then setup for a long current lifted tack across to the Connecticut shore. 

 

With the rail occassionly buried and water sloshing in the cockpit, doing my best to steer through the waves and keep my balance on the barney post; glancing over my shoulder, I saw the J35-Zorro coming up on our rear. I

thought he would pass above us, but he bore off to our leeward shouting words of encouragement and complementing our pointing ability, "Boy, does that

thing point."  

 

When Brian called 85 degrees on the windward mark we swapped to a slighlty looser and powered up tack through the rougher waves.  While we kept the tacks to a minimum, the few we had were very smooth, with Bob staying down low long enough to skirt the foot with a good yank on the genoa clew as Brian ground in the sheet while hiking from the new weather side, then Bob

clambored up shortly thereafter.  We now found urselves ahead of Sanibel since we last crossed tacks in the middle of the Sound; as they tacked and followed us to the finish. Quite a race for the last Wednesday of the season.

 

A couple of minutes after crossing the finishing and rounding R"20", the knotmeter came back on. Broadreaching back to Noank, we exceeded six knots a

few times.

 

Spinnaker                                             Time on Time

Yacht    Type   Skipper, PHRF    Elapsed Corrected

 

1 SeTherin  Catalina 22 Magner, 273  95.45    75.39

 

2 Tumult      Ericson 30-1 Litke,   215   89.37    75.94

 

3 GoodGoose  P Triton Richardson,249  99.87  81.25

 

4 SassyLassie  Newport 28 Burnham, 162  90.23  82.37

 

5 Sanibel  Pearson                    Keeler, 199  95.8   83.14

 

6 Nell    Bristol 32   Gleason, 247     400 DNS

 

7 Raggedy Ann  Ericson 25 Bonola, 234  400 DNS

 

8 Blue Lite        Cal 25    Giulini, 225  400    DNS

 

9 Gael Force    C&C 24   Harren, 218 400   DNS