SF3, 2013

Another Sunday, another great day to be out on the water racing sailboats.  Things looked doubtful from the start for good racing conditions today with rain and no wind in the forcast.  The weather Gods must have taken pitty on the sailors and instead delivered a gently 5 knot wind out of the North and no rain.  I think we are all finally getting the hang of this new start area as most of the fleet had arived at the new C mark starting zone at the correct time with the Committee boat ready to get things moving.  It was going to be an interesting course today with a reaching leg on the menu.  The course was CDBGCBC.  We had a little bit of a second rate start getting ourselves to the line about 10 seconds early and getting trapped between J and Danny F right on the line.  The boats stacked up near the boat end of the line had a definite advantage with much better pressure on the right hand side.  We found a lane and tacked into it heading for the right side of the course.  It paid off quickly and we manage to climb many positions and had a solid D mark rounding.  The second leg was the one that set the stage for the rest of the race.  Downhill it was J and Bad Dog on the left side, and us in pretty good pressure in the middle.  We thought we were doing ok untill we saw Peter on Blur rolling down the left side of the course like a freight train.  He managed to blow by us and J and rounded B mark hot on the heals of the much faster rated Antrim 27.  The next leg from B to G was a challenging one.  Not because of shifty winds but because of the very shallow water that exists around the red can at this time of year.  In order to approach the mark on starboard one has to sail to the North of the red can over the shallow water and hope for the best until tacking onto the layline  We did just this and surely narrowly avoided running aground.  The big Benneteau was not so fortunate and spent much of the morning parked in this exact same spot.  I would question the good sense of using this mark at these very low water levels.  Reaching from G back to C our boat came into her own.  We were the first to pop a chute and quickly passed Pentameter and Danny F with our kite us pulling quickly around the course.  It was an easy gybe around C heading back to B.  I dont think things changed much for the rest of the race.  We folled J's transom and did not quite have the horse power to make any gains in these light conditions.  Today was Peter's day and his crew onboard Blur did a fine job, easily taking home first place well done!

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