[Public-List] Surprise's first race of 2014

Thu Jun 5 09:28:17 PDT 2014

Oh I know that we won on rating.... but I like to win the Gengis Khan  
said he liked to.

He said the finest thing in life was:

"To defeat my enemies, to ride his horses, while listening to the  
lamenting of his women".

I like to win boat for boat, take the rating and really grind them  
down, then listen to the whining about my PHRF number.

I'm not really a nasty guy....

Quoting "Mike Lehman" <sail_505 at hotmail.com>:

> Gord,
>
> You should have won that race based on PHRF ratings....
>
> ALOHA 8.5    198
> ALBERG 30    228
>
>
>
>
> ~~~_/)_/)~~ Mike Lehman ~~_/)~~~
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Gordon Laco
> Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2014 8:55 AM
> To: Alberg 30 Public List -- open to all
> Subject: [Public-List] Surprise's first race of 2014
>
> Good morning friends,
>
> After a late start, we finally got SURPRISE in the water last week.
> Caroline and I sailed her up the coast and celebrated our wedding
> anniversary at anchor in one of our favourite places  unseasonably cold
> Saturday night, but our woodstove kept us warm.
>
> Last night we raced for the first time.  Clint, Peter, Steve and I clambered
> on board (those of you coming to duke it out at the Syronelle will meet us)
> and we motored out with the rest of the mob in very light air.   We (well to
> be truthful, just I) couldn¹t resist harassing our friends in their
> engineless 5.5 Meter class boat as they coaxed her along toward the distant
> start.  Throttle wide open, towing as large a wake as we could manage, we
> circled them while shouting Œhey John, look! I¹m a motor boat!¹.
>
> There was a delay while the committee struggled to cope with the dramatic
> wind shift that occurred just about when the start sequence was due to
> begin.  Eventually the flags and horns started  the behemoths (and light &
> fast boats) of A Fleet started, then we settled into our machinations for B
> Fleet¹s start.
>
> I made a perfect start, only about 45 seconds early.  We were forced to
> reach down the line and headed up when the horn came just in time to save us
> the ignominy of running past the end of the line.    We crossed right on the
> horn, but way down at the unfavoured end with the rest of the heard at the
> Œgood¹ end.    We hung on for a bit so as not to make it too obvious that
> I¹d made a start other than the one I intended then flipped onto port tack
> and crossed the sterns of the rest of the fleet.
>
> A couple of jogs later, we found that when we crossed the fleet we¹d caught
> two boats... Hope was arisen and with lighter hearts we set our sights on
> the next boat ahead of us  the dreaded Aloha 27 MAID MARION, sailed by the
> ex-RAF deHaviland Vampire jet fighter pilot now gentle mature gentleman who
> is one of our main rivals.
>
> At the first windward mark rounding, we were only one boat length behind
> him.  The spinnaker went up faultlessly (oh, I guess I did pack it properly
> last year....) we knocked off a perfect gybe, and were neck and neck with
> MAID at the leeward mark.  We set ourselves to the long trudge to windward
> again... This time we could lay the course to the mark on one tack due to
> another big wind shift.  The apparent was up to about 10-12 knots;  SURPRISE
> was bounding along at  5.5 knots hard on the wind.  Hard flattening of the
> main gave us another tenth of a knot and we began working our way up on
> MAID.  We were about 50 meters to windward of her and about a boat length
> behind.   Oh the eager anticipation of victory!  Sometimes we gained,
> sometimes they held their lead.  I was desperate to stay high enough above
> them that we didn¹t get lee-bowed by them... I¹d bear off minutely for
> speed, then steal up again to hold my distance.... All the time thinking of
> that flush of pleasure I¹d feel when we climbed far enough past that I could
> bear away, lock them in our wind shadow and slam the door in their faces!
> But I am getting ahead of myself.  Actually we never got there.
>
> At the windward mark we were right beside them.  We could have passed a note
> by hand to them but of course both crews were too busy.   We were neck and
> neck with our spinnaker pole almost touching their boom end all the way down
> and it came to pass that they got us by a second or two.
>
> However, there was no depression.  We¹d had a terrific battle, and who
> knows, maybe we¹ll get them next week.  How did we do in the fleet?  I have
> no idea yet;  such is PHRF.
>
> What a terrific night, we motored back to the club all grins.
>
> Gord #426 Surprise
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