On Wednesday night, the wind was about 10 knots from the south (185). We had a full crew; Charles replaced Mike from last week. I had Charles do 'tactics' and gave him my new handheld compass to take bearings (!). Janet packed the chute for the first time. She did a good job. The pre-race practise hoist was good.
Before the race I had a brief chat with Alf, Jack Rabbit, and we discussed last week's race. We obviously did well winning 3 out of the 4 legs. The last leg was what we had to win and we didn't. The little tacking duel, and the fake out tack indicated that they were pulling out all the tricks, even psyhcological ones. They were behind, they knew it but they weren't going to give up. It paid off with a bad call on my part on the last downwind leg. My intention was not to let him get away with that again. It was a nice chat; perhaps a bit of verbal joisting before the main event.
Tonight was similar to last week with nice winds and flat seas. We had good start with clear wind while Jack Rabbit was in traffic. As a result we were able to pull away. We were on the left side of the course and had to wait until the fleet tacked. The boat handled well and we were able to gain. We stayed clear of other boats and didn't cover Jack Rabbit. We watched the earlier started boats round the windward mark. We could see that the port gybe was favoured so that is what we did. We made it to the leeward mark on one gybe but it was slow going. I think the wind shifted to the west as we went north. We decided to douse on port and raise on port at the windward mark. Both leeward and windward roundings went well. On the last downwind leg the wind shifted to the west enough that we couldn't use the chute, so we doused. We finished well ahead of Jack Rabbit.
I was pleased with the race. Good boat handling, good tactics, good team work. A happy boat!
We sailed back to the club. The NOOD will be next weekend and some of the early arrivals were blocking access to the crane. The wind from the west meant that we couldn't head into the wind as we docked. A tricky docking given the limited space and wind direction but everything went well. Everyone was very cool, no comment, but I was pleased with my docking.
After dinner the PRO announces the results: starting with PHRF I and ending with our fleet, PHRF V. Janet asked the PRO, Harvey, to reverse the order of the results, since people get tried of clapping by the time our results are announced. Harvey didn't do that, but did make a request to for all to make an extra effort to clap! Fortunately I do not blush as much as I used to. We did get a suitable amount of applause for our season's first "gun".
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