The first Berkeley Midwinter race this year (Nov) had been canceled after the Busan oil spill. For December 8, we were looking at a good-sized fleet of Express 27's (14, with our own start). In attendance were Nat, Nathan, Heather (bow), Dayne (trim), and Amy (trim).

The Berkeley Circle venue includes a start/finish mark in the center and eight turning marks evenly spaced around it (the center being designated "X" and the surrounding marks "A" through "H").

This month, the course was a twice-around windward-leeward. The wind was very light in the morning, and we needed to motor over, but it picked up enough by start time to avoid a postponement. We flew the #1 for all upwinds.

Our start was reasonable but we had a very slow first upwind, arriving at the windward mark at the bottom of the pack. We were trying out one of the "new" mainsails (nice 3DL, used very little but we haven't practiced with it). The shape was much better than our dacron main but it took a little while to find the new groove. Upwind sailhandling (trim, tacks) was good but it just took us too long to get up to speed.

The rest of the race was very light, with a few puffs rolling down on the next upwind but the spinnaker legs being characterized by very hot angles just to keep the kite full (~90 apparent). Our sets, douses, and gybes were very good. Downwind the key was maintaining pressure in the kite.

Upwind there were tradeoffs between the bands of wind rolling down the course and the current relief available on the shore side of the course.

(W-L being respectively between a buoy out towards the center of the channel from Pt. Richmond, and the base of the Berkeley pier).

After the first upwind, the leaders had pulled seriously away. For the rest of the race, we were mainly competing against Dianne, Wile E Coyote, and Opa!. Wile E earned a a bit against us on the downwind, but traded places back and forth with us on the subsequent upwind as the wind shifted back and forth. We were much faster on the second upwind, but by then the leading cluster of boats was about 15 minutes ahead and totally out of reach. On the second downwind, the wind was starting to drop again, and we were finished early (course shortened) at the leeward mark ahead of only two boats (one of which had DNS'd). The first downwind, we had gone a bit further to the right (stbd tack) before gybing over and gained from the hotter angle versus Diane and Wile E, but the second time we were a bit inside and stayed roughly even.

Our downwind speed was pretty good. Our upwind speed has improved a lot since last year's midwinters. The test comes next month when we try again having learned our trim lessons with the "new" sail.