Sunday, 24 July 2011
Crew: Brian, Seth & RW
Winds: NNE, NE, N avg 5.6 kts, 1-11 kts, gusts 11.5, lulls .7
DW wind avg 4 kts, 1st half 3 kts, UW avg 7.3 kts
Weather: Overcast, Temp 75 F
Current: flood - North Hill 1233
Start time: 1330 ( roughly an hour delay)
Start/Finish: Vixen starting area
Course: s/f–SE-V; Distance: 5.4 nm
Shrouds: +0,+0,+0 DW, & +0,+1,+1 for a portion UW
With the flood an hour old, the start was a downwind in an N to NNE zephyr. We elected the up-current pin end of the line as did Euphoria and Plain Vanilla, and favored the left or eastern side of the course to Silver Eel. The smaller reaching spinnaker was a good choice in this extremely light air. The wind went light as we neared the shore of Fishers, while those that had been swept down-current now had the breeze to fetch the mark. What little wind we had was on the beam out of the east, making a jibe was a detour too far I thought.
We converged on Silver Eel with Celebration & Goombay Smash just ahead of us, with the Fishers ferry blasting away to insure passage on the north side. The three of us doused, hardened up around the mark & tacked to starboard to parallel the ferry in the opposite direction.
The wind appeared stronger on the right and we tacked in towards Fishers. Looking at the chart, subsequent tacks towards North Hill and N. Dumpling for more wind appear to have been headed (by the current possibly). Our thought was to get up current in the strong wind rather than later nearer the layline in less wind. Had we tacked less, we may have stayed closer to Celebration. Celebration finished 7 minutes, 20 seconds ahead of us. We would have had to finish 7 minutes, 20 seconds faster to correct over Salud for second place.
Link to chart
3rd Place
Link to results