Notes from Labor Day Regatta 2/3 September
Fun regatta at a different venue, between Angel Island and the Golden Gate. It was fun for me as I hadn't really sailed there since sailing with Curtis on his J/24 in the Corinthian Friday night series. Results eventually will be on the SFYC site. The picture is of us following Grinder just after the start of Race 2. Shots are couretesy of Norm (for tracking down the photog) and Sergei. He has tons more shots posted on his site on Flickr.

Tactics
Once again we sort of screwed the pooch on researching the tides. But when we arrived at the course it was apparent that it was flooding. Duane and Curt mentioned (after the fact) that the current in this area is some of the strongest in the Bay. In the earlier races each day, the wind seemed pretty uniformily fluky over the whole course. So going right into the shallower water payed. But you didn't want to go so far right that you sailed into the dead area upwind of Belvedere Island. (Funny how once we sailed into that big hole, I instantly remembered how looked it during the Friday night series...it still looks the same) As the breeze built, getting out to the left and the bigger breeze paid. Also, I think there is a geographic shift to the left at the top of the course once the breeze fills in.

I think on both days, staying out to the right of the downwind course paid better than the left (for sure) and the middle (maybe) Downwind it was puffy like the lake, but I think it was pretty difficult to discern the puffs on the water with the light and tide.

Starts were 50/50. We had a couple of great starts, and three really really bad ones. Line was short enough that all 10 boats could not fit on the line. Good practice. On day two, on the first race I tried approaching on port and tacking into a hole. With the light air, chop and number of boats, we tacked and parked..and parked. On the last race, we came in on stbd, ducked into a hole to leeward of Shawn Bennett, we were too early, held it there too long and instead of bailing out and getting back up to speed, we parked...and parked.

Caroline mentioned a tactic for ducking at the start, wereby the jib is left backwinded after the tack so that the bow is driven down fast enough to duck a windward boat that is quite close. We should practice this move, perhaps?

Competitors
Ten boats out, Grinder and Bennett where the A fleet, Don Jesberg was not driving so they sort of lead the B fleet on Ego, O-positive and Flyer where out ahead of us, Matilda and Aquanut in the expanded B fleet, Bones trailed the lot.

Boat Issues
Well, we did manage to explode one of the two newest kites. Rather dramatic and a bit weird as it split in four seperate places. Two places in the material and two along the seems. It's kite material now.
Other issuse, caribeaner for spin halyard tore out of boom

Tuning Comments
We had one really good leg, 2nd to the windward mark. We had speed with Grinder, but weren't quite pointing on them. I think the picture shows that we had a very full main compared with them. To us, it seemed like they must be using the new North main, it was very twisted off at the top. While this leg was good, and we were better on Saturday than Sunday, I think we were way off on point. Speed was pretty good vs Aquanut and Matilda, but we had speed and point on them during Summer Keel. For the majority of the regatta, as soon as the crew was hiking I had a lot of backstay on. At the top of the course, I had all the backstay on I could get (7-8.5 on my scale) I'm thinking that we should have been up on the rig more. We stayed down and used a bunch of backstay because it was relatively light at the bottom of the course. Maybe we should have had more.

Base numbers were 36 5 3/8" rake at 33 turns and loos 13.5. Caroline measured Personal Puff with our measuring stick rig, and 36 6.5" measures out the same with our measuring stick and when their designated measurer uses their tape measure. So we now have an apples to apples comparison.

Crew Comments
Crew all mentioned that they felt a bit rusty this weekendMaybe the change in the conditions might have had something to do with it (it was light and fluky not nuking as we expect in the Bay) I for sure think that was the issue with the spinaker sets. When it's blowing hard, clearing the spin halyard from behind the main isn't a critical step -- it's so windy that the spin blows out from behind the main. However, this weekend, we had some pretty big issues with that on Saturday. So the steps are, 1-spin out of the bag, 2 - clear the halyard, 3- prefeed the tack.

We are all psyched up for the worlds and have a tentative schedule for staying on the boat through the winter and early spring. Fall is going to be mostly out though as we all now have commitments for September and October.

Memorable Moments/Quotes
Had a great sail back to Brickyard Cove with Caroline and Norm after the race, awesome curry at the Thai resturant with Jen, Norm and Caroline, nice rounding 2nd to the windward mark in Race 2, sad to loose three boats when the kite exploded in the same race!