The Vallejo season opener is a two day event (Sat+Sun), with one distance race each day. Roughly, it's a "there and back" race but the return trip is shorter (finish line closer to Vallejo).
The Saturday race (roughly Olympic Circle to Vallejo) is almost always a downwind race. It's a big event (295 boats registered this year), so they provide a short upwind leg to a turning mark in order to prevent a downwind start demolition derby. We had a one design start (scored class event for the season) and good attendance.
The crew was Nat, Dayne, Arthur, and I, leaving us well short of the class weight limit of 880 lbs (which wouldn't normally be a problem in a downwind race). The crew weight, did, however, make our decision about which jib to use at the start an easy one (#3, with the fleet split on their decision). We were a little bit late off the line, and had trouble pointing for a while. Upwind performance (mainly noticable in one-design events when being a small fraction of a knot off the pace is glaringly obvious) has been a consistent issue for us. We've gotten some good advice from other 27's, and it's time to check rake and other tuning parameters again (haven't checked them since a boatyard retune).
After a few minutes of tuning, our performance was better but still not quite there. Fortunately, the first leg is short and we got to the corner with a couple of Expresses to play with. A right turn and a reasonable kite-set later, we were headed for San Pablo Bay. Often, the fleet opts to crawl up the Richmond shore, but this year the almost universal choice was to stay left (and later to go on the San Rafael side of Red Rock).
Our downwind speed was good (lighter but solid air, tapering down as we approached Red Rock). The fleet split up a bit left and right, with us being towards the middle. Boats on the left got lighter than we did for a while going by Angel Island, but also got to the far side of the light air under the island more quickly (a visible and fairly stiff wind line formed). We gained on the boats to the right up until near Red Rock, when they took better advantage than we did of some local wind conditions there (I'm not convinced that their positioning was better, but they certainly got moving a bit better than we did in the puffs).
Between Red Rock and the "corner" at R2 (into San Pablo Bay), breeze was reasonable and current (ebb) was a very strong factor. The sailing angle straight to the mark was very deep (usually too deep for reasonable performance). We crept our pole back in stages and kept to the right middle (on course to pass between the Brothers and Pt. San Pablo, but not creeping up the old docks). We felt that the boats which dodged right early (presumably in search of current relief, often a sound strategy) had given up too much angle for good speed, being on starboard tack with the dock close to starboard and a really deep sailing angle). Our speed against those boats was generally good, as we seemed to have slightly more breeze in addition to a more favorable sailing angle. The boats further from shore than we were generally seemed to share our sailing angle andwere off-again/on-again gaining and losing distance.
As we approached the Brothers, the boats on the left did manage to sneak in and enjoy generous current relief behind the larger Brother and even alongside it. They enjoyed gains against us there, but some of them subsequently misjudged the current at the mark and we gained a lot during the rounding.
The next leg was basically a reach parade, with rapidly building wind. The sailing angle was a close reach (spinnaker being carryable, but not with much margin during the puffs) over to Pt. Pinole. There was a benefit to staying closer to shore through current relief, and we seemed to have plenty of breeze there. We were fortunate (?) to have El Raton and a few other boats way ahead, feeling out that side of the course for us. A few other Expresses, including Opa, were close enough on various sides (forward, aft, offshore) to have good fun testing our speed, though we'd been significantly behind the leaders since around Red Rock.
Moving along the shore side of the fleet towards the bridge, we stayed inside and went relatively far towards the bridge before making our gybe to cross the channel (and current) to enter the Vallejo/Mare Islandchannel and begin the final leg. As usual, the wind went significantly forward. Some E27's and other boats were able to carry their kites the whole way, but we were among those who changed back to a jib halfway or so up towards the finish line after being unable to make the kite work to full advantage in the shifty, puffy breeze along the Mare Island side of the channel.
Final position, 8/10. We lost most of the positions early on, but the leaders continued to stretch distance (albeit at a lesser rate). On the good side, we handled the kite and boat well in some very puffy conditions. On the negative side, we need to work on starts and our upwind tune/speed/point in puffy conditions.
