One Design Piankatank Regatta Spring Series 3
on Wednesday May 28, 2014 07:56PM
Hope everyone enjoyed the racing on Sunday - here is the 3rd place write-up:
Apparently the planets are back in alignment. The wind was a seabreeze, the humidity has begun to make itself known, and the Commodore ain’t typing this summary. Last Sunday’s racing got started after the fleet waited on the dock for an hour for the wind to fill in from the SE. Tom Roberts and his merry crew (Blackwell, Mike, Kate, Russ) wasted no time setting up a W course and then switching over to H courses once the wind “settled in.” Before one start my compass had the wind 35 degrees different at the boat than at the pin.
The play for most of the beats was to dig in hard nearly to the port layline and then catch the lift that commonly appeared on the top ½ of the course. Downwind there seemed to be a little advantage going deep or jibing away about midway down the H. But the advantage was marginal and dependent on finding the right puff to get underneath. The starts were tight and I found myself OCS on one race, fortunately the fleet didn’t go as far left as they could and I was able to get back into the game by digging in a little further than seemed prudent.
Most of the fleet seemed to be going about the speed up and down the course; except of course for that one white one that was faster and smarter all day long. My lessons for the day were more on the recall side of the house. We got back into playing the centerboard downwind to balance the rudder feel and to help with soaking down a bit when we could go deep in a puff. The tension on the halyard was adjusted a couple times during the day. I also recalled, for the 164th time, the importance of early and clear communications between boats as they approach their roundings. All in all it was a very good day out on the water and a beautiful FBYC Spring Series!
One note; John Beery’s slip and fall from his trailer was serious but he is doing well and his leg should be healed in time for the July races.
Results | Photos by Sharon Wake
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Flying Scot (9 boats)
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Front Runner (4 boats)
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San Juan 21 (4 boats)
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Tags: frontrunner, flyingscot, sanjuan21