SF2, 2014

I was pleasantly surprised by the weather conditions on today's race course. Under bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine we had a solid 7 knots of breeze straight out of the North. There was some kind of fire burning just North of town that had laid down a thick blanket of smoke but once that blew through there was no stopping the beautiful day. It was great to see the normal committee boat back out today and with it came a much better chance of a square start line. The course was CPTEAC. Due to a whole pack of over early boats down at the boat end the first race for A fleet was a general recall. I am still trying to find what 7 horn blasts mean in the rule book but I will keep digging ;) We got shoved to the back of the sequence and when it was our turn we got away clean closest to the pin end. We had Bad Dog just off out right hip but we were able to work up to a good lee bow position and send them tacking away. We stayed quite close to the Eastern shore on the beat to the pump house and got into an awesome lift that laddered us up right to the layline. It was a power reach to T. We tried a tricky simultaneous hoist gybe at the mark with little success but will keep working on that maneuver as we go. We had a not bad angle and pressure under spinnaker as we played the Bear Creek shore with BD hot on our heels. As we gybed to reach past E mark we rolled out onto a great angle and sailed back towards the city front under lifting winds. We gybed as BD tried to cover our wind from behind but they were just a little slow and we managed to be bow ahead and rolled under a couple of 525's as we approached A mark. We were a little confused trying to find the mark as B seemed to be missing. We later spotted it washed up on the beach by the zip line waterski place on the NW side of the bridge. It was a quick beat heading North with Vitas working up from underneath us into a leebow position causing us to take a short hitch for clear air. Once back on Starboard with a clear lane we enjoyed a nice lift that took us to finish at the committee boat. We had hoped to see the other Melges out today but as we sailed in we spotted them at the boat launch still trying to figure out where all the pieces go. It is a pretty easy boat to rig but the first time can sure be a little mystifying. Another solid performance by the very fast Blur followed closely by BD and J. We will miss next week due to copious consumption of turkey and beer but look forward to our next outing. A very happy birthday with big Al Barnes today and best of luck to him and Thor who will be competing in the Southern Straits regatta aboard Jam next weekend.