A3, 2013

Well as many of you noticed tonight I have decided to retire the J80 and more ahead with a Melges 24 program.  Michel and I had a wirl wind week with a drive down to Vancouver to take delivery of hull number 275 and take it back home to sunny Kelowna.  We finished rigging it only an hour before the start of tonights race.  We had very fluky winds tonight and the first start ended in a general recall for fleet 1.  We got put to the back of the starting sequence still 15 minutes away.  By the time our starting sequence was underway more of the breeze had dissappeared and we were left floating near the startline.  The course was going to be CPEADC.  We had a poor start and got gassed quickly as we floated towards the start line.  The mark rounding at P was a total sh*t show with a bunch of boats floating inchs from each other within the 3 boat length circle.  The biggest cowboy maneuver of the night came from Shadowfax who approached the P mark with somehow good speed and decided to try to barge their way inside all the the remaining right of way boats.  We also got hit by a port tack boat from another fleet who for some reason or other seemed happy to make no attempt to avoid us despite our hails.  The reaching leg from P to E was another interesting one.  We had the kite up and were quickly overtaking an unnamed boat to windward and as expected they luffed us about 60 degrees off course, no big deal.  When we slipped below them, however, and tried to sail our proper course of a beam reach to the next mark rounding, they refused to remain clear and insisted on only sailing their proper course.  We, as the leward right away boat, had to fend them off to windward to avoid contact.  I will include the actual rules here for your reference..

ON THE SAME TACK; PROPER COURSE
If a boat clear astern becomes overlapped within two of her hull lengths to leeward of a boat on the same tack, she shall not sail above her proper course while they remain on the same tack and overlapped within that distance, unless in doing so she promptly sails astern of the other boat. This rule does not apply if the overlap begins while the windward boat is required by rule 13 to keep clear. 

Proper Course A course a boat would sail to finish as soon as possible in the absence of the other boats referred to in the rule using the term. A boat has no proper course before her starting signal.

 We were having some spinnaker rigging problems also and lost the ability  to trim it in, which unfortunately caused us to have to douse the kite around the E mark to rerig the kite.  Once we finally got the kite re hoisted all of the evening difficulties were quickly forgotten.  Let's just say the boat hauled some serious ass!  We quickly covered the remaining distance to what was now the finish at A mark and finished much closer to the two lead boats then we had anticipated.  It will be a little bit of a learning curve on the M24 as it does have a few unique characteristics but wow what a ride.  See everyone this weekend for the annual Blossom Time Regatta at the KYC.

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