Are you sure?

The Race Committee obviously can do what ever it wants. Sometimes they are creative. Once the course is set one immediately gets out the GPS to figure where are we going. OK the wind is there and the mark is there; but that would be downwind? Yep a downwind start. The committee boat did have the pin to its port but that would mean it would be on starboard to boats starting downwind. Yep creative! This situation caused a lot of boat to boat hails: "Richard is it really a down wind start!?!"

The wind was more or less north. At the start line the wind was light. We slowly moved to the pin and hoisted the spinnaker after the start. I found the winds frustrating and confusing. All the other boats seemed to be doing well but our chute just wouldn't fly properly. I decided to douse. This was a big mistake as the other boats increased their lead. We were way behind and I had no clue why the boat wasn't moving.

As we rounded the mark the wind slowly died for everyone. The boats to the north (Balance and Windburn?) lost wind completely. Everyone drifted together. We never lost way. The winds were very inconsistent. Our heading went from north to east to south to east. The big problem was that we had no idea were we were going and we were slowly taking the lead! The boats were too far away for a hail. We used one of our 'lifelines': Call a friend; to get someone to check the website and tell us what is meant by 'mark 2'. Claudiu and I tried but there was no answer.

Finally some of the bigger boats got some wind and we could follow them to the mark. The new wind was south east. We rounded the mark. It was a spinnaker run to the next mark. As we approached the mark the wind became very hard to read. The chute came down and we used a human pole to micro adjust sail trim. It did not take long after the mark rounding to get back into the good south wind. We had a good mark rounding and once again raised the chute for the last leg to the finish. As we approached the finish it was apparent that boats ahead were sailing upwind. I didn't want the chute to be back filled. We dropped it in lots of time.

We sailed the boat well except for the bad call to drop the chute on the first leg. A fourth place finish.

The problem was reading the wind. There was a transition zone between the north wind and the south east wind near the start/finish line. The chute had to be hoisted then doused; which, might make people wonder whether one knows what one is doing (especially after the bad call on the first leg)! I think it was only on the last leg when I was asked: 'Are you sure?'