[Public-List] Second race of year for SURPRISE

[Michael Connolly]

Well done Gord, BRAVO!!

Gordon Laco <mainstay at csolve.net> wrote:  Well, as an antidote to J's race - here is a brief on ours...

Also due to a pile of business travel this spring, last night was SURPRISE's
second race of the year. Our performance with the new mainsail was again
startlingly good.

Air was 5-8 knots west softening as usual. We started in the usual cloud of
vermin (er Sharks, sorry) all of whom could point significantly higher than
us but for once were able to power out into safety. I watched the pair
below us nervously for some time but luckily they were preoccupied
tormenting each other and didn't press up under us. They could easily have
forced us to tack onto port which would have left us dodging under the
sterns of the rest of the fleet.

We reached the weather mark fourth and popped the spinnaker and ran back
down the course gybing once. The second beat was just like the first... We
took pains to keep away from luffing matches and relied on boatspeed rather
than pointing ability (which we don't have!) had a few bad moments on the
last leg in to the mark when we were headed badly but the usual torso
twisting and grunting did the trick and we made it up to it with a few feet
to spare.

Coming around the mark I realized we were still way up in our fleet...and
nobody from the larger boats in A fleet who started five minutes behind us,
was anywhere near yet. I started getting excited but was firmly told by my
crew that there was a lot of race left and I should shut up and drive.

We did one gybe on the last leg - the lads (my son Pete and his friend
Duncan) did it so perfectly that the image was the chute never moved, the
boat rotated under it. We over-took one boat and glided over the line...
The first A fleet boat was just under five minutes behind us. He was the
only one who would have beaten us if we had started with them.

Woke up this morning still glowing with satisfaction.

What a difference that new main has made!

Now, if only we had some A30's to race against up here....

Gord
#426 Surprise

_______________________________________________
These businesses support your Association:
http://www.alberg30.org/store/A30supporters.html
Please support them.
_______________________________________________
Public-List mailing list
Public-List at lists.alberg30.org
http://lists.alberg30.org/listinfo.cgi/public-list-alberg30.org


 1213280334.0