Leading in, NOAA had been forecasting a possibility of rain or even thunderstorms.
Saturday morning, the forecast was upgraded to a fun 15-25 kt day with NW breeze. The expectation was a race near the slot, sailing across the current. We had a fun group with Dayne and David G trimming, Gus making a good first appearance on foredeck, and Nathan+Nat trading pit and driving.
On the way to the start line (having inadvertently abandoned the bucket) we arrived at the start line (roughly Berkeley area but avoiding interference with the other event run by BYC on the Circle itself) to find dead air and a postponement. Expecting a fill from the NW after lunch, we broke out baguettes, salami, and a very nice runny white cheese.
The breeze very promptly filled from the direction of San Pablo bay and the marks were set (standard windward-leeward with no gate this month). Both races were W-L twice around, finishing downwind. For the E27's, #3's were the choice in the first race.
Unfortunately, the breeze rotated right until the windward mark was almost a fetch from the start. We had a slow start- not far from the line but we didn't tack over onto port early enough. Also, we hadn't had the combination of wind and time to tune up- we suffered versus the boats who just knew their settings perfectly.
It took us about 1/3 to 1/2 of the leg to get competitive (point and speed) but thereafter we were keeping up the pace. Unfortunately, there wasn't much opportunity to make gains on tactics because of the unbalanced course, and "as fast as them" wasn't good enough once we were behind (and sucking a little bit of bad air here and there).
Our rounding was pretty good, and our set clean (thanks Gus!) though we took all of our sail-handling at a measured pace to avoid problems since we hadn't worked together before. The first downwind was a pretty tight carry with the kite at first, but worked out. A conventional leeward drop later, we had a nice rounding and were ready for the next (and final) lap. With another fetch (or close to it) there wasn't much opportunity to make gains though our speed was good, and the next downwind was a lower angle. We did well from there on out except for a missed shot at a late overlap at the leeward mark, but only managed to edge out 3 boats across the line.
After the first race, the wind promptly dropped to nothing. Much of the fleet switched over to #1's when the wind came back enough to race, but Nat made the correct call of sticking with the #3- on the bay in the early afternoon, if you've got hanks (not a tuff-luff) and aren't sure, the smaller jib is safer. The breeze built back up for us. We had a better start this time (maybe because I wasn't calling it :) ) and a similar period of orientation on the beginning of the upwind (new driver). However, we'd figured out our trim and were keeping up.
We considered ourselves to be doing quite well to have arrived at the windward mark near Moxie and Witchy Woman, and managed to stay near them for much of the rest of the race. We had another smooth set, and a deeper angle to the leeward mark than the first race. The first leg down, we were able to drive quite deep and hard, with a following swell helping us out a lot.
Our leeward rounding was again pretty good (smooth kite drop) and we held pace upwind (also making gains from taking a hitch to the left). Following the downwind, we were solidly in the middle of the pack, with a very deep angle to the finish line but lighter breeze requiring a hotter angle. Unfortunately, at that point, with some boats approaching from behind, we made two mistakes: #1 gybing early for the finish line, and #2 refusing to acknowledge just how much we'd missed the layline by just sailing low and slow towards the finish line instead of staying fast and gybing again if necessary.
Watching 5 boats sail by you at the finish line was not the ideal way to end the day, but overall the day's performance was still quite encouraging: in a variety of conditions, we'd been able to keep pace and even make gains on boatspeed. The only time we suffered a bit was when the popular choice was #1's but before the breeze had filled enough to prove us right (at least for our quite slim crew weight- I think we might have been even near the class crew limit of 880 lbs only once or possibly twice last season).
On the bright side, the unusual wind direction meant that the trip back to the STFYC was also a fetch, in pleasant wind though a bit more waves and spray after passing Alcatraz. Thanks everyone, for a great day!
ToDo's: possible spinnaker bag in the forward hatch, keep the interior drier (taking waves through the hatch). We had no sail-handling mishaps, and are clear to work on speed.
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