Attending were Roger on trim #1, guest skipper Brian Boschma, the new
Arthur Zwiegincew, and Nathan on bow (Nathalie absent), killing time by taking video clips of the kitties). The course was triangle-w-l, start/finish line centered.
After examining the conditions at the starting line for a different event,
Elise proceeded to the Berkeley Circle start and crossed the line six
minutes late, hot on the heels of several other late starters.
Being too far out to have seen the course flags, and unable to hear
the VHF announcements (VHF and GPS being in Nat's seabag), the first and
second leg strategies largely involved determining the course amid several
widely scattered fleets. Taking advantage of the leading 27s' courtesy in
pointing out several wind holes, rapid progress was made up the first
windard leg ("windward" by courtesy only, as for the second month in a row
the first leg was strongly unbalanced).
Downwind speed was good, with a nice call by Brian on spotting wind
inshore that allowed us to pick off a few boats stuck towards the center
of the bay in extremely light air.
Shifty breeze led to the second downwind being mostly upwind (with
several sail changes between #1 and spinnaker). A scattered and widely
spaced fleet resulted in a few boats taking extreme right or left courses
and others (including Elise) trying to split and cover, with too much
distance to Diane in front to catch up and a healthy (but not necessarily
decisive) lead over several boats behind.
The final "upwind" was a deep kite leg towards the finish, with several
27's behind (Swamp Donkey trying to catch up).
All in all, a very nicely sailed race given the less than ideal start. We
had good speed in general and learned some things about jib trim in
particular. Several established boats had slight edges when the wind
dropped to almost nothing; this is something to watch and learn from.
Pending official results, we believe that we beat Taz, Swamp Donkey,
Expressway, and possibly another boat or two.
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