[Public-List] Second race of the year...

[Gordon Laco]

Hello gang - 

Well I missed writing up the first race of the year, as has been my habit for a while now, so here’s the Second Race of the Year.

The first race is perhaps better laid aside, due to a regrettable lapse on my part involving forgetting to put the spinnaker aboard.   We finished 3rd but the experience was marred by the three of us bickering all the way around the course trying to place blame for the big forget.   Well I should say it was the crew against me, a two way bicker, not three.  I feel quite justified in suggesting that they should not have believed me when I said earlier in the week that the ‘chute was still aboard from last year… my track record should have alerted to them to the fact that I rarely recall things like that correctly.  Clearly they should have challenged me, and that challenge would have driven me to check and THAT would have revealed that the sail was not in the boat.   If they’d done that, we’d have had the sail and surely would have fought our way up to a first place finish.  If we’d had the spinnaker on board.  Their position was that I should have checked myself.  Weak, I say.

There was another problem.  This one I place squarely on the race committee.  Due to a bit of confusion on their part, and a drifting windward mark, they initiated the start sequence four times.  One time involved the guy on the horn trying it out… his timid staccato beeps made everyone start their watches… Then the mark drifted and the second start sequence was cancelled while the crash boat sped out to windward to catch it and anchor it properly… I forget what happened with the third (accidental beep again I think) then there was the real start.   

Anyway, we were charging in, glorying in our brand new genoa being used for the first time, when I realized with ten seconds to go that we were alone… the rest of our fleet was about  minute and ten seconds behind us.  Yup… we were making a perfect start a minute early.  The upshot of all that was having to wheel around and start after everyone.  We clawed our way up from last place to third, but as usual, we were left wondering how things might have turned out if we’d only started better…and if we’d had the spinnaker...

Well I guess I did tell about the first race after all… on to the second.

This time we DID have the spinnaker aboard, but Steve had to cancel so it was only Clint and I to run the boat.  I decided not to fly the sail.  We got a clean start, marvelled at how with the new sail we could keep up with SUNDANCE ,our mortal enemy, upwind… but it all fell apart at the leeward mark after the run when we became entangled in a squabbling mass of vermin (Shark class yachts) in addition to the majestic TO LIFE, the custom Killing 50 which had started with A Fleet five minutes behind us and was overtaking.  By the time we got clear of all the dead air (and the fine breeze had subsided to a sigh of course) SUNDANCE as 1/3 of the windward leg ahead of us and we were never close to them again.   We ended up 4th in our fleet… not great but ahead of MAID MARION, so we took solace in that.

Oh well, there’s always next week… bring on the 2018 racing season!

Gordon Laco
#426 SURPRISE