! + ?

Janet was still away in NL. Jamie was available as replacement. He did sheets while Chris and David were foredeck and mast. We had a fair breeze from the east. About 5 J22s showed up at the start. A regatta next weekend?

We were a bit early to the start. I tacked back on port; either I was to run into a Beneteau or had to duck. I elected to tack. At first I was apologetic about the decision however, in hindsight it was probably a good call. We were able to squeeze out the Bene, although we were behind the other boats in our division.

On the upwind leg we found ourselves on the left side of the course, while the J 22s were leeward, to starboard. The wind made a big shift to the left. Our heading went 150 and dropped to 138. We had to tack. We stayed on port for a short time; when we tacked back we were just off the port layline of the windward mark. The lift continued and it brought us almost to the mark. There were no worries about starboard tackers as we were now clear ahead.

The chute went up nicely and we had a good downwind leg. As we approached the mark we were on port gybe. There was a bit of discussion about a plan: dropping the pole, free flying the chute, and doing a windward takedown. We were overstanding the leeward mark before a decision was made; we headed up on port tack. At the mark rounding we had to go leeward of Windburn; Three was able to get inside. The combination of our bad air from Windburn and Three's clear air meant we fell back.

The chute was doused on port gybe. There was some discussion about whether to do a port hoist or move the sheets to set up a normal hoist. From last week I felt part of the problem was the port hoist. We decided to move the sheets.

At the windward mark we tacked on the layline but couldn't make the mark. Three, who was between the windward and offset mark couldn't make the offset mark. We tacked onto port and had to duck Flawed. Flawed couldn't make the offset and had to tack back. We were now on starboard and they had to duck us. The chute hoist was good.

Upwind and downwind boats tried flying their chute in a vain effort to find some wind. We elected to keep ours up and managed to get a bit of wind. Three was abeam and south. Were they windward? They dropped their chute. What little wind there was favoured them (so I guess they were windward). They were able to head directly to the finish and keep up some boat speed.

The main thing about the first part of the race was the shift(!) to the left; the main thing about the last downwind leg was the lack of wind(?). Unfortunately it wasn't scored since the RC finished some of our division at the windward mark. It was still a great race. Competitive fun.