Crew: (Kirsty, Doug, Chris, Luke, Dan , Manuel, Jeff)

After a rainy Saturday, and wet puppy smell after they helped deliver the boat to CYCA, Sunday was a sunny cracker! Winds predicted from the West around 18 knots. The crew assembled and it seemed like we got off to a lazy start in leaving CYCA. We still had 45 minutes until our start and we ambled over to the start boat and kinda got our timer adjusted after the second try.

The wind was up enough where I was questioning if we put the big #1 up, but without a good #2 we were forced to choose between our old #2 or being under powered with our #3. Decisions, decisions! Just as I was calling for the #1 to be put downstairs, I decided to run with it and put a reef in the mainsail. We get the main up and then banged down to the first reef. Then with the #1 headie up I decide to shake out the reef. It’s quite busy near the start, with a record 134 boats starting the race! We still have ten minutes and on the wind we are feeling a little over powered, so we put the first reef back in the mainsail.

Doug is helming, and he takes us over the line just seconds behind our start time of 12:05pm (a 35 minute offset handicapped from the 11:30am start of the slowest boat). We have a good first beat into the wind to the mark with only a few starboard boats to dodge and weave around. A few boats in our division are within sight and we chase them down the second leg. The wind shifts a bit and we pole out the headie half-way down the leg. Rounding the Bradley Head mark we reach down the harbor, keeping slightly out of the channel to avoid the tide that just turned to flood. If feels like a good, fast leg and we start to reel in HubcapII and L’eau Co by the mark. Turning into the wind again, we struggle to pull them in, with a few small round-ups as we tack up down harbor. The wind is on enough to get most boats moving nicely. As we finish the first lap, we get caught out in strategic, but not tactical thinking. We are forced to tack a few times and with the big headie up, in moderate wind, it kills our speed.

We dig into the second lap, hiking out hard in the gusts to help our pointing ability. We keep flirting with Hubcap, almost catching up at the first mark, then play with her at the second, but always just behind her. We are finally right on her tail by the last mark. She tacks first and takes a dig towards the finish line with us barely clearing her stern before we tack behind, but above her. With a slight wind shift we get lifted and Hubcap either doesn’t have the same breeze or is ignoring the lift. Following the wind we cover Hubcap and two exhausting tacks later we cross the finish. I figure we are 4 or so, not having caught L’eau Co and having seen Gusto way ahead on the last lap.

Back at the club, we are surprised with a 3nd place, but with two ‘visitors’ placing ahead of us we are fifth over the line. Looking over the times, we are just forty seconds behind L’eau Co fastest elapsed time over the course. With the handicapping we miss first by ten minutes, but the winner had a twenty minute head start, too much to make up in moderate breezes! We are racing consistently around the fastest elapsed times week on week, so that is more of our benchmark for the week. The slow tacks and a few bad decisions have built up the forty second lag behind our main competition. With this win we will slip by Star Ferry for 2nd place by one point, but we can’t sit on our laurels, as the 2nd drop of worst score happens next week. Fun to see where we end up, and only three races to go!