[Public-List] WNR 8/28/08

[J Bergquist]

Folks,

Fall has started to arrive in Annapolis a bit early. After a few weeks
of unseasonably nice weather we have been awaking to gray, steely,
windy mornings with temperatures in the 50's. After two consecutive
WNR cancellations, we finally got a good race off last night in a
fresh 15-18 knot easterly breeze which was a nice change from the past
weeks. Jonathan Adams won the race, cementing his position as the new
man to beat in the Alberg 30 class. Clearly one of the ingredients in
his secret sauce is that he has managed to get Larry Morris to be on
board consistently and I am sure that is helping his results. Tim
Williams, Andrew Cole, and I rounded out the finishing positions and
Tim once again showed us all how it's done from behind as he broke is
main halyard in the pre-start, sent someone up the mast to repair it,
and managed to complete the race under a jury-rigged main halyard
setup, finishing in 2nd place after starting way behind the fleet.
Harry Gamber was also out there, but retired after presumably breaking
something (Harry what happened?) In case you hadn't guessed, we got a
good view from behind once again, thereby cementing ourselves as the
team-not-to-get-beaten-by so you better watch out that we don't
embarrass you at some point.

The start of the race featured a line that was basically 45 degrees to
the wind with the pin upwind and therefore WELL favored. I am not sure
you could even lay the line on starboard tack. So the key place to be
was at the pin, on port, and Jonathan did a great job of this. We
started furthest to leeward with Andrew, Harry, and Jonathan all to
windward of us (and therefore also ahead). When we got to the first
turning mark, it appeared that the starboard layline was a bit further
up so most boats did not tack at the turn, instead continuing on port
to get closer to the starboard layline. After the tack, we went for a
ways and then Harry and Andrew (who were ahead of us) decided to tack
back to port I think because they wanted to avoid the downwind boats'
wind shadows. We stayed on starboard because we seemed to be on a lift
and I didn't want to give that up. Also I didn't think the wind
shadows were going to be a huge problem. As it turned out, since we
were using the #2 we had a serious power deficiency (see more on that
below), and the wind shadows actually kind of were a problem. Bottom
line: when Harry and Andrew tacked to port we were close astern of
them. By the time we got to the mark, they were several hundred yards
ahead of us and Tim had managed to sneak in as well.

Tim is the only one who used his spinnaker on the run, as Jonathan,
Andrew, and I played it conservative and went with just jibs. Tim
managed to reel in and pass Andrew using his spinnaker so kudos to him
for that. We hung back and had a nice view of the bottoms of some beer
bottles, which was, you know, good times.

One critical mistake that we made last night was using the #2 jib
instead of the old #1. We were power starved all evening and in
hindsight, we should have gone with the #1 and a reef I think that
would have been much faster. I haven't gotten round to setting up a
decent reefing option on my boat yet. It will happen soon, after last
night's speed problem.

It was a great night of sailing. Next week is the last WNR of the
season. If I can manage to escape the Anatomy lab to get out there and
race I hope to see everybody on the water!

Ciao,

J Bergquist

-- 
J Bergquist
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