B2, 2013

Tonight was the first night that we could really put Eclipse to the test. It was a beautiful evening for a sail with nice 10 to 18 knot breeze out of the SW. I was worried it would veer to a Westerly and prevent any kite work but it held on to the SW direction and allowed us to get one solid downwind run. The course was SAPFGB and unfortunately was mostly reaching and beating legs. A fleet had a general recall and got shoved to the back of the sequence. We went for a midline start but unfortunately got squeezed between Shadowfax and GR and had to tack out to find a lane. We hit the top mark second just behind GR and ahead of J and hung on for an awesome run downhill. We had good angles but found the pressure a little light. We would hit high 12's in the puffs but then soak back into displacement mode after it rolled through. I probably had the rig too tight as I set up for worse case scenario of 19 knots. We managed to sneak ahead of GR approaching pump house and held onto a narrow lead on the beat to F. We hoisted the kite and tried to hold it heading for G but were very quickly getting blown down range. It was a douse and jib reach rounding G with the lead Santana's. we sailed a respectable beat to B mark and spent some time covering GR who were making gains from behind. We crossed first with just enough distance to cover the spread but then noticed J finish out of nowhere very close behind. They had us. We had a blast and were satisfied with our initial heavy air performance on the Melges. Hope everyone had fun tonight and I am still dreaming of that perfect windward leeward 15 knot course. I know we will see it yet.