[Public-List] NOOD day 3: Breeze On

[J Bergquist]

I apologize for the delay in getting the day 3 write-up out on the wire. I
actually had to do some work yesterday since I blew off most of last week.

Day 3 of the NOOD regatta was an exciting day of breeze on sailing. We
clocked 15-22 apparent on my boat which made for good times. Since the
northerly had been blowing all night

Lanny Helms showed us all how it's done by taking both bullets on day 3. He
was blazing saddles going upwind and in race 1. I don't think he even used
his spinnaker and still managed to win the race. I know we did not use our
spinnaker but we used the pole as a whisker pole and made hull speed so I
don't think we gave up much doing downwind with that setup. Of course we got
last in that race, so don't take cues from us!

Strategy wise it was similar to Saturday. There was a strong current flow
going down the bay and this made the left side of the course favored on the
beat for current relief. There were some right shifts which allowed for some
gaining opportunities by going right, however, this had to be balanced with
the price paid for going into the stronger current. For some reason it also
seemed to me that the current set was worse when you were on starboard tack
than when you were on port. Maybe I am wrong about this, but that's how it
seemed to me. So this favored getting to the left early and spending your
starboard tack time on the bottom of the leg then making gains on port
toward the top. Jonathan nicked me in race 2 with this strategy. There was
also a fairly strong chop running after the northerly had been blowing for
so long and this made for a lot of pitching going upwind and some squirrelly
steering on the way down.

Overall it was a great day of sailing on the bay. Those breeze on days are
what I live for and it was great to just get out there and bash around.
Congratulations to Lanny for coming out and kicking our butts so roundly and
completely. I think he led at every single mark rounding and nobody could
catch him. At the awards we were all actively wondering what his secret must
be. I don't know, but whatever it is, it clearly worked!

Tim Williams won the regatta with a 2 point lead over TC Williams.
Congratulations to Tim for another great performance, which merited a couple
of write ups in the Capital (
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2008/04_27-07/SAL). Jonathan
Adams, sailing with his superstar crew finished third so congratulations are
in order for team Laughing Gull as well. Complete results can be found at:

http://www.race.annapolisyc.org/DesktopDefault.aspx

The next race is Miles River which is Memorial day weekend. Unfortunately I
cannot make that one as one of my close friends is getting married that
weekend in Chattanooga. However, it's a great point-to-point race with a
wonderful raft-up at the end and I would encourage everybody to consider
doing it. Last year we didn't have much wind for that race, but hopefully
this year we'll get some good breeze and equally good times to go with it. I
believe that Towney is the race co-ordinator.

-- 
J Bergquist
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