I had a great day today, even though I was sick, with a headache, a stuffy nose and a bad cough. This is not a writeup of the race, I was only doing foredeck.Nathan: helm/main trim (skipper)
Nick: pit/tactics
Suzanne: upwind trim
Mark: downwind trim
Nat: foredeckSo 'I' is Nat.In race 1, we were over early (or at least so we thought) and had to start again which puts us one boat before last - we had good boat speed upwind, we had great team work, we all worked as a team all the way, we accepted everyone's suggestions to get better and we had some great maneuvres. Nick did some great tactics (including a fabulous leeward mark rounding to get us back into the ebb right away and Nathan maintained some really good boat speed. We picked up half the fleet with only one upwind, one downwind and an upwind finish. Our result wasn't awesome, it wasn't bad either, and the progress from the start situation to the finish situation was fantastic. And the 20 knots on the race course helped us as we were the only boat who had chosen to go down to a #3. More importantly, soon after the finish, we caught up with the top of the fleet, and we stayed right on their back for the entire time. So for me, this race was not about winning this particular course. It was about developing winning material. In race 2, pretty confusing start but we hit the line right - had some snappy remark from one of the top boats in the fleet as we were leeward and wanted to come up to the line and they had room to come up. The reply was 'you can't touch me'. I guess that you just put this behind and just keep racing. We reached the windward mark in position 5 or so and our gybe set was going to be really good. Until...the spinnaker halyard block got caught in one of the jib hanks and opened up. Our spinnaker came down and the halyard stayed stuck up about 3 feet from the top of the mast. This was such a disheartening moment - we were doing SO well - and then, this happens. Remember though that we had winning material on the boat. We released the jib, heated up to get more boat speed and we kept going. It was a lost battle and we knew it. It wasn't about the result. It was about sailing the boat fast and sailing our race, do as best as we could given the punch we just got in our face. Get up and go. The spinnaker halyard was still caught in the hank, so we wanted to see if we could get it by taking the jib down. Unfortunately, it got itself loose, so we kept the jib up. All of our halyards were used up but with my arms up I could reach the halyard and we were downwind, so it was hanging close to the mast. There was no time to lose. I picked up the topping lift and Nick and Mark set up to tail and hoist me up the mast. I grabbed the halyard (just about, the topping lift doesn't get very high up the mast) and they pulled me down, with the halyard in my hand, Suzanne grabbed the halyard from me and started to run the tape to locate again the head of the spinnaker so we could reconnect the line. We had to re-run a couple of lines but finally the kite was ready to go up. We put it up, floated it, re-attached the topping lift to the pole, poled out and reached to the mark. My armpits were a little bruised because we didn't use a harness (there was no time to be scrambling for the harness which I now remember that we keep below for this kind of situations...) We did not see a shortened course mark at the windward mark, we may have missed it, it looks like the entire fleet missed it though...So we did take the spinnaker down, (floating it again to be able to tack around the mark and get out in current as quickly as possible) and headed upwind. We picked up two boats upwind and with more race course, we could have continued to hoist ourselves up the fleet. Unfortunately, it looks like the leeward gate was the finish line and we finished one before last.We tried our very best - and I for sure feel much better about dropping from 5 to 12 because of a mechanical failure than a sailing mistake. Now, that was sailing.
Nick: pit/tactics
Suzanne: upwind trim
Mark: downwind trim
Nat: foredeckSo 'I' is Nat.In race 1, we were over early (or at least so we thought) and had to start again which puts us one boat before last - we had good boat speed upwind, we had great team work, we all worked as a team all the way, we accepted everyone's suggestions to get better and we had some great maneuvres. Nick did some great tactics (including a fabulous leeward mark rounding to get us back into the ebb right away and Nathan maintained some really good boat speed. We picked up half the fleet with only one upwind, one downwind and an upwind finish. Our result wasn't awesome, it wasn't bad either, and the progress from the start situation to the finish situation was fantastic. And the 20 knots on the race course helped us as we were the only boat who had chosen to go down to a #3. More importantly, soon after the finish, we caught up with the top of the fleet, and we stayed right on their back for the entire time. So for me, this race was not about winning this particular course. It was about developing winning material. In race 2, pretty confusing start but we hit the line right - had some snappy remark from one of the top boats in the fleet as we were leeward and wanted to come up to the line and they had room to come up. The reply was 'you can't touch me'. I guess that you just put this behind and just keep racing. We reached the windward mark in position 5 or so and our gybe set was going to be really good. Until...the spinnaker halyard block got caught in one of the jib hanks and opened up. Our spinnaker came down and the halyard stayed stuck up about 3 feet from the top of the mast. This was such a disheartening moment - we were doing SO well - and then, this happens. Remember though that we had winning material on the boat. We released the jib, heated up to get more boat speed and we kept going. It was a lost battle and we knew it. It wasn't about the result. It was about sailing the boat fast and sailing our race, do as best as we could given the punch we just got in our face. Get up and go. The spinnaker halyard was still caught in the hank, so we wanted to see if we could get it by taking the jib down. Unfortunately, it got itself loose, so we kept the jib up. All of our halyards were used up but with my arms up I could reach the halyard and we were downwind, so it was hanging close to the mast. There was no time to lose. I picked up the topping lift and Nick and Mark set up to tail and hoist me up the mast. I grabbed the halyard (just about, the topping lift doesn't get very high up the mast) and they pulled me down, with the halyard in my hand, Suzanne grabbed the halyard from me and started to run the tape to locate again the head of the spinnaker so we could reconnect the line. We had to re-run a couple of lines but finally the kite was ready to go up. We put it up, floated it, re-attached the topping lift to the pole, poled out and reached to the mark. My armpits were a little bruised because we didn't use a harness (there was no time to be scrambling for the harness which I now remember that we keep below for this kind of situations...) We did not see a shortened course mark at the windward mark, we may have missed it, it looks like the entire fleet missed it though...So we did take the spinnaker down, (floating it again to be able to tack around the mark and get out in current as quickly as possible) and headed upwind. We picked up two boats upwind and with more race course, we could have continued to hoist ourselves up the fleet. Unfortunately, it looks like the leeward gate was the finish line and we finished one before last.We tried our very best - and I for sure feel much better about dropping from 5 to 12 because of a mechanical failure than a sailing mistake. Now, that was sailing.
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