Disappointing Race

We raced this past Saturday in the April Fools Race hosted by Shoreline Yacht Club – little did I know that I was to be the fool for most of the day. Thanks to the intrepid crew of Jim Merk, Liz Roberts, David Harper, Jeremy Scott and my darling co-captain Risa K. Scott for enduring my version of April Fool.

The winds were light at the start (about 6-8 knots) but projected to build during the afternoon. We did not get a good start thanks to my first tactical error of the day by calling for two quick tacks rather than luffing the sails as I thought we were going to be over the start line early. As it was we were almost 2 minutes late to the line a deficit which would seem to be a problem but was overshadowed by an additional tactical error. We were close hauled to the first mark with good crew work on the several tacks needed to make the mark.

After rounding the first mark, we had a good spinnaker set for the downwind run to the second mark. Our spinnaker trimmers and helmsperson did a great job keeping the boat moving fast and we were looking forward to a good rounding of the second mark hopefully having gained a bit on the other three boats in our class. As we neared the mark and I looked for the competitors, I sensed something was wrong, they were nowhere in sight. For this race, the course is designated approximately 5 minutes before the start by signal pennants which I had read incorrectly. Therefore we were sailing the wrong course and it was too late to fix my mistake, so after some deserved verbal flogging from the crew, we decided to turn the day into spinnaker practice.

After a good beat to the windward mark (and avoiding the boats still racing in another class) we set the light spinnaker again and made another downwind run. The set and the run were good but we fouled the afterguy on the gybe and had to douse the chute which came off cleanly.

By this time the wind was building so we decided for our third spinnaker run we would switch to the heavier chute, which is not only heavier material (1.5 oz nylon versus 0.75 oz nylon) but also a smaller sail. Just as we went to set the chute the wind gusted to approximately 24 knots (I learned this later) and we struggled to get the sail up. We again fouled the afterguy (need to work on this part of the maneuver) and had to drop the chute into the water and then haul the wet sail back into the boat. All in all not one of our better jobs but it gives us room to work on the “most improved crew” award. By scoring a Did Not Finish (DNF) we had fourth place in our class (of four boats) firmly in our grasp.

On Sunday, we took Mille out and worked on our starts. Thanks to Jim Merk for his great coaching and to Liz and Risa for their crew work. I feel confident that we will improve our starts and not leave ourselves in a competitive disadvantage right off the line. Although we still need to work on our spinnaker handling, due to crew size and wind conditions, too much of one and not enough of the other, we opted to leave the chutes in the bag and instead focus on another area.

Next race – Long Beach Harbor Invitational Series Race 2, hosted by United States Power Squadron, Saturday, April 10th.