The fall series starts half an hour earlier than the regular season. On race day I was short a fourth. Jeff, Silver Lining, was not able to use his boat and I was glad to have him fill out my crew. Jeff, Wes, Kevin. and me.
A little bit of excitement prestart. We almost ran into a boat on our sail to the start. Port starboard. I started yelling starboard well ahead of time. The other boat’s skipper was sitting to leeward so had a clear view. Obviously not checking (but how could he not be?). As my crew know, I occasionally see red in these situations. My hails become somewhat more frantic until the ‘WTF’ as I went head to wind. My parting shot was “Why?”. Possible answer: complete incompetence, but I leave that to the offending boat’s crew. A crew member from the giveway boat did not admonish me, after the race, for making an untoward comment, as happened on a previous occasion!
We got to the start line just in time. The PRO went into AP. Coincident with the dropping the foresail I noticed that the motor had fallen off its mount. It was jammed between the mount and transom and was held upright by the lanyard. The motor was stored below. We got everything sorted in plenty of time thanks to the AP.
For some reason I started with the first division. Perhaps I wanted a practise. We did a proper start, which did not go as well as the practise, but was still good.
The fall series has all of the FS boats in the second start so we do have big boat little boat issues. We had good windward legs. The course was ‘V’ so we had a long downwind leg. A chute would have meant better downwind but the offset was a greater probability of screw. We didn’t try to fly the chute. Some boats did, but they had problems. Victory Dance did OK but only flew their chute well into the second downwind leg. Hardtack also did; but when they tried to gybe, broached badly.
The finish time was 17:30 just at sunset. We did well (I think). PHRF in this sort of multi division event makes the results uncertain and we still don’t have the official score. We certainly had fun which is of course the main thing.
A little bit of excitement prestart. We almost ran into a boat on our sail to the start. Port starboard. I started yelling starboard well ahead of time. The other boat’s skipper was sitting to leeward so had a clear view. Obviously not checking (but how could he not be?). As my crew know, I occasionally see red in these situations. My hails become somewhat more frantic until the ‘WTF’ as I went head to wind. My parting shot was “Why?”. Possible answer: complete incompetence, but I leave that to the offending boat’s crew. A crew member from the giveway boat did not admonish me, after the race, for making an untoward comment, as happened on a previous occasion!
We got to the start line just in time. The PRO went into AP. Coincident with the dropping the foresail I noticed that the motor had fallen off its mount. It was jammed between the mount and transom and was held upright by the lanyard. The motor was stored below. We got everything sorted in plenty of time thanks to the AP.
For some reason I started with the first division. Perhaps I wanted a practise. We did a proper start, which did not go as well as the practise, but was still good.
The fall series has all of the FS boats in the second start so we do have big boat little boat issues. We had good windward legs. The course was ‘V’ so we had a long downwind leg. A chute would have meant better downwind but the offset was a greater probability of screw. We didn’t try to fly the chute. Some boats did, but they had problems. Victory Dance did OK but only flew their chute well into the second downwind leg. Hardtack also did; but when they tried to gybe, broached badly.
The finish time was 17:30 just at sunset. We did well (I think). PHRF in this sort of multi division event makes the results uncertain and we still don’t have the official score. We certainly had fun which is of course the main thing.
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