[Public-list] Wednesday Night Race Tonight: 1st Race Summary

[Tim Williams]

J Bergquist asked for a re-cap from me on the first WNR as LinGin took the
"gun".  (They don't shoot the gun off anymore; it's a horn.  Apparently they
say it scares the birds?!)  I wrote the summary, but had some computer
troubles.  At long last, here it is.

Towney, perhaps you can give us a quick write up of last week's race since
you took the horn?


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Wednesday Night Summary
Race No. 1

The race this past Wednesday was basically a straight shot out and back.
Not a lot of tactics involved per se.  The wind was out of the NE around 10
kts and we sailed with full sails powered up.

After watching the previous starts, we decided the pin end was favored and
gave the best angle for speed and shortest distance to the first mark.
Clear air and boat speed are vital for a good Alberg start.  9,000 lbs of
momentum takes awhile to develop if you don't have it at the gun.

The first leg we looked to keep in clear air and not mess with the other
classes that can easily interfere with our efforts.  We then rounded the
mark and stayed high of our next course to force the other classes below us
and to keep us above the spinnakers coming back.

After rounding the mark, we set the chute and as it was a short leg, took it
down quickly.  As we came around the next mark, a Melges 24 rounded up and
smacked us in the port quarter, about a foot from the transom.  It made a
big sound, and I remarked that I knew who won that battle!  We had a small
scratch in our teak toe rail.  I kept the pieces of gelcoat the Melges left
with us as a prize.  After we raised our protest flag, they did their
circles and continued on.  It looked like they sustained a nice 2" crack in
their bow.  Ouch.

The rest of the race was a foot race into the harbor.  The boats behind
caught up a bit as the breeze died down in the harbor, but with the
spinnaker up, we took a broad reach toward the Naval Academy sea wall and
then went all the way to to the gas station next to AYC.  Towney took a
direct route almost dead downwind and as we gybed, it became apparent that
our higher angle on the wind gave us the speed we needed to keep the lead.

Our crew did a great job with the spinnaker work, especially Brian Palmer
who is not our regular foredeckman.  We're all looking forward to next
week's race.

--Tim
LinGin #244